3400796    กฎหมายป้องกันและปราบปรามการฟอกเงิน    Anti-Money Laundering Law

ความเป็นมาของการดำเนินงานต่อทรัพย์สินที่มีการปกปิดเปลี่ยนสภาพ แนวคิดทฤษฎีของกฎหมายป้องกันและปราบปรามการฟอกเงิน ความหมาย รูปแบบ และวิการฟอกเงิน แหล่งสำคัญที่เป็นสถานฟอกเงิน ความจำเป็นที่จะต้องมีกฎหมายป้องกันและปราบปรามการฟอกเงินในประเทศไทย หลักการสำคัญของพระราชบัญญัติป้องกันและปราบปรามการฟอกเงิน พ.ศ. 2542 การกระทำความผิดฐานฟอกเงิน หน้าที่ของสถาบันการเงินในการดำเนินการกับธุรกรรม หน่วยงานที่บังคับใช้กฎหมายป้องกันและปราบปรามการฟอกเงินและการดำเนินการกับทรัพย์สินที่เกี่ยวข้องตามกฎหมายดังกล่าว

(Background and measures for taking legal steps for laundering properties, legal framework, theories of anti-money laundering; definition, patterns and methods of money laundering; the necessity in enacting Anti-Money Laundering Law; important principles of the Anti-Money Laundering Law (1999) the offenses of money laundering; function of financial institutions on transactions, enforcing Anti-Money Laundering Law enforcement agencies and the procedure concerning related properties under the said law.)

(3400796 จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย)

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday issued notice to the Centre on a plea seeking disclosure of certain vital documents in connection with the issue of black-money stashed in foreign banks.

The apex court sought the response from the government on allegations by eminent jurist Ram Jethmalani and others that authorities were withholding vital documents relating to the case.

Black Money

Meanwhile, Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium placed before a bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, the status report, in sealed cover, relating to investigations carried by the Enforcement Directorate against Pune-based businessman Hasan Ali Khan against whom the Directorate has lodged a complaint for violating the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA).

During the hearing, the SG said the status report will indicate that Letters Rogatories have been issued to some countries in connection with the case of Khan.

The court posted the matter for hearing in December. The PIL filed by Jethmalanai and five others, including former Punjab DGP K P S Gill and former Secretary General of Lok Sabha Subhash Kashyap, have alleged that the government was not taking action to bring back black-money stashed in foreign banks.

www.timesofindiia.com

I will keep this simple.  Here is the text of the suit, which is brought under the MD Wiretap Act. The suit alleges that Andrew Breitbart, working in concert with O’Keefe and Giles, intercepted an “oral communication” using an electronic device, which would indeed be a violation of the act.  The problem, however, is that the statute specifically defines “oral communication” in section 10-401(2)(i) as: “any conversation or words spoken to or by any person in private conversation.”

What this means, as established by the clear text of the statute (and Maryland caselaw,including Fearnow v. Chesapeake & Potomac Tel. Co. of Maryland, 342 Md. 363 (Md. 1996)) is that at least one of the parties to the conversation must have had a reasonable expectation of privacy in the conversation. In other words, if someone stands up in the town square and shouts out loud and someone else records it, that is not a violation of the act.

The problem for ACORN is that, as a matter of law, the employees at ACORN had no reasonable expectation of privacy in what they said to members of the public who entered their offices.  As made clear by Katz v. United States and its progeny (made applicable specifically to the Maryland Wiretap Act by cases such as Malpas v. State, 695 A.2d 588, 595 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 1997)), “What a person exposes knowingly to the public, even in his own home or office, is not a subject of Fourth Amendment protection.”

Get that? The conversations in question were knowingly exposed in a place of business to two customers who walked in off the streets. There is and can be absolutely no expectation of privacy for the ACORN employees in question.  As such, the conversations are not “private conversations” under the Maryland Wiretap Act as a matter of law.  I found all this in a matter of 15 minutes on Lexis.  I’m sure another 15 (which I don’t have) will find numerous directly applicable precedents under Katz that are completely factually indistinguishable from the present case.  In other words, this case is so totally without legal merit the very filing of it is almost sanctionable.  And putting “they had a reasonable expectation of privacy” in the complaint is not enough for this claim to survive summary dismissal; the court does not have to accept conclusory statements and legal conclusions.

Furthermore, to the extent that ACORN wants to go after Breitbart (and I hear they are wanting to go after Fox next!) for publishing this information of clear public concern, they might want to check the First Amendment jurisprudence of the United States Supreme Court on that question before getting themselves in further trouble.

RS

Information is the world’s most valuable commodity

How many countries have you visited in your life? Well, according to a recent study your answer should be between 10 and 20 countries, on two continents at least. We are living in the era of communication and information. With that I mind there’s no surprise people travel more than ever. Critical information on any travel destination is only a computer click away.

With the World Wide Web at your fingertips you can actually gain detailed knowledge on anything and anyone.

Have you googled someone lately? I have and the information I found was really valuable in the process of hiring a new employee.

A decade ago this information would be unheard of, but with new possibilities comes new challenges. The business world is more globalized than ever, but most companies are still collecting the same kind of market information as they did in the early nineties. I have a really good example I want to share with you.

A year a go I was contacted by a Norwegian stock listed company.  They were in the process of discovering new markets in the Middle East for their unique products. As the company had already entered the local marketplace their screening process included a team of ten Norwegians and a local guide. The project team was called “business is local” because it was their general belief that global challenges should be met with a local approach. In this case “local” meant having a guide with background from the local market.

The quality of the local research executed by the local agent was terrible, and the Norwegian corporation soon found themselves relying on information from sources that hadn’t been updated for years. In addition it turned out to be information adjusted to strengthen local business. In other words local business paid the local agent to get a better profile in all final financial reports.

Needless to say, the local agent was sitting on both sides of the table, and collecting fees from all parties. The business relationship was profitable for only one party the local agent himself.

Well the story could have ended here but it didn’t. You see the local agent was connected to a cartel that specialized in selling services provided by child labour. In the west such business can be devastating for a corporation’s reputation. These things easily happen in distant corners of the world the CEO of the Norwegian corporation claimed when asked about it.

Well, I’m sure they do! But there are ways to avoid dealing with crooks even outside the tiny Norwegian marketplace. You see professional global players know that business is both global and local. Professionals do their research based on global databases that contain global corporate structures, PEP lists, and blacklists from trusted sources.

It’s all about having the right information.

In addition real professionals rely on global business specialists with experience in the questioned marketplace.

In this case the company would have found out that their agent was a distant cousin of the CEO of several companies where they were in the process of starting up a commercial collaboration. They would also have found out that he was blacklisted both as a convicted money launderer and as part of the child labour network through a complicated ownership structure. Oh, one more thing, the company that sent the invoice to the Norwegian corporation was registered as a car rental company. Not as a business consultant corporation or any other form of agency.

With all these question marks the Norwegian corporation would never have done business with either the agent or his recommended partner if it was in their home market. So why rely on them on the other side of the world? Well, the answer is that you shouldn’t. And most of us wouldn’t either.

If you have a headache you call a doctor, and if you’re building a house you probably need a carpenter. In international business the last thing you need is to work with a gangster or local mafia. After ten years in the field of international business I’m still surprised that large corporations care less about research for entry strategies than they do when planning their private vacation.

You see in my world information is the worlds most valuable commodity!

Kleiven Jr 2009

Kjell-Ola Kleiven

by Mike Whitney

Ben Bernanke

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke is a man who knows how Washington works and uses that knowledge to great effect.  His appearances on Capital Hill are always worth watching. He sits politely with his hands folded in front of him playing the bashful professor while one one preening congressman after another makes a fool out of themself. In contrast, Bernanke looks like a modest and thoughtful academic faithfully upholding the public’s trust.  But things aren’t always as they seem. The Fed chief is sticking it to the American people big-time and no one seems to have any idea of what’s really going on. Former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler sums it up in a recent Wall Street Journal article, “The Bernanke Market”. Here’s a clip:

“By buying U.S. Treasuries and mortgages to increase the monetary base by $1 trillion, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke didn’t put money directly into the stock market but he didn’t have to. With nowhere else to go, except maybe commodities, inflows into the stock market have been on a tear. Stock and bond funds saw net inflows of close to $150 billion since January. The dollars he cranked out didn’t go into the hard economy, but instead into tradable assets. In other words, Ben Bernanke has been the market.”

What does it mean?

It means the revered professor Bernanke figured out a way to circumvent Congress and dump more than a trillion dollars into the stock market by laundering the money through the big banks and other failing financial institutions. As Kessler suggests, Bernanke knew the liquidity would pop up in the equities market, thus, building the equity position of the banks so they wouldn’t have to grovel to Congress for another TARP-like bailout. Bernanke’s actions demonstrate his contempt for the democratic process. The Fed sees itself as a government-unto-itself.

Over at Zero Hedge, Tyler Durden did the math and figured that the recent 45% surge in the S&P 500 had nothing to do with the fictional economic “recovery”, but was just more of the Fed’s hanky panky. Durden noticed that the money that’s been sluicing into stocks hasn’t (correspondingly) depleted the money markets. That’s the clue that led him to the truth about Bernanke’s 6 month stock rally.

Zero Hedge: “Most interesting is the correlation between Money Market totals and the listed stock value since the March lows: a $2.7 trillion move in equities was accompanied by a less than $400 billion reduction in Money Market accounts!

Where, may we ask, did the balance of $2.3 trillion in purchasing power come from? Why the Federal Reserve of course, which directly and indirectly subsidized U.S. banks (and foreign ones through liquidity swaps) for roughly that amount. Apparently these banks promptly went on a buying spree to raise the all important equity market, so that the U.S. consumer who net equity was almost negative on March 31, could have some semblance of confidence back and would go ahead and max out his credit card. Alas, as one can see in the money multiplier and velocity of money metrics, U.S. consumers couldn’t care less about leveraging themselves any more.”

So, the magical “Green Shoots” stock market rally was fueled by a mere $400 billion from the money markets. The rest ($2.3 trillion) was main-lined into the market via  Bernanke’s quantitative easing (QE) program, of which Krugman and others speak so highly.

Wouldn’t you like to know if Bernanke sat down with G-Sax and JPM executives and mapped out the details of this swindle before the printing presses ever started rolling?

So, how long can this kind of fakery go on before our creditors grow weary of dealing with chiselers and stop buying US Treasuries altogether? Here’s a blurp from Friday’s Wall Street Journal on that very topic:

“Shaky auctions of Treasury notes this week reignited concerns about whether the government can attract buyers from China and elsewhere to soak up trillions in new debt.

A fuse was lit this week when traders noted China’s apparent absence from direct participation in two Treasury bond auctions. While China may have bought Treasurys just before the auctions, market participants read the country’s actions as a worrying sign that China and other foreign investors may be ratcheting back purchases at a time when the U.S. is seeking to fund a $1.8 trillion budget deficit.

This week alone, the U.S. deluged the bond market with more than $200 billion in record-size sales. The U.S. has had little trouble finding buyers in recent months. But that demand is fading, and the Treasury market has become volatile.”

Uncle Sam is goosing the bond market just like he is the stock market. Take a look at Treasury’s latest bit of chicanery which was stuffed in the back pages of the Wall Street Journal back in June:

“The sudden increase in demand by foreign buyers for Treasurys, hailed as proof that the world’s central banks are still willing to help absorb the avalanche of supply, mightn’t be all that it seems.

When the government sells bonds, traders typically look at a group of buyers called indirect bidders, which includes foreign central banks, to divine overseas demand for U.S. debt. That demand has been rising recently, giving comfort to investors that foreign buyers will continue to finance the U.S.’s budget deficit.

But in a little-noticed switch on June 1, the Treasury changed the way it accounts for indirect bids, putting more buyers under that umbrella and boosting the portion of recent Treasury sales that the market perceived were being bought by foreigners.” (“Is foreign Demand as Solid as it Looks, Min zeng)

Nice touch, eh? So, someone doesn’t want you and me to know when foreign demand drops off a cliff, so they just bend-and-twist the definitions so they meet the Fed’s requirements.  How’s that for transparency?. Apparently, Bernanke et al. don’t believe the Chinese have translators who can make sense of all this subterfuge. That may be a miscalculation, however, given recent rumblings from the Orient.

So many corruption scandals are contrived and complicated today to the point of them barely seeming naughty at all that I really perk up when I hear about something this blatantly criminal.
But this one….

Oh yes. The best line:

The source described the alleged public corruption as “straight bribery” — cash-filled envelopes exchanged for political influence.

Hoboken, New Jersey, Mayor Peter Cammarano III is among those arrested in the public corruption probe

CLOUDS DO NOT ONLY BEAUTIFIES OUR SKY but also our speech.

There are several “cloud idioms” that we can use to our talk that may make it more pleasing.

Here’s a roll of clouds:

in the clouds; with one’s head in the clouds – out of touch with reality; daydreaming

on cloud nine (or seven) – extremely happy

under a cloud - under suspicion or discredited

i.e.

I believe that they will all agree that the current bill is in the clouds.

You may want to yank back to the earth those in the congress because they have been in the clouds for quite some time now.

Edward was on cloud seven when Avril became her girlfriend last May 26.

The manager is under a cloud on the money laundering issue in the company but those in the executive committee do not want to hear about it.  And that makes the staff believe that something fishy is going on.

No, I’m not talking about airing your dirty laundry in public, I’m talking about the stuff in the hamper; piled up on the floor, in the bottom of your closet, you get the picture.

a. Treat spots before laundering; mend before laundering if possible.

b. Wash full loads rather than small loads to conserve water and energy, and tear on your machines.

c. Find the best way to fit laundry into your schedule. For some doing all on one day make work best; for others, doing it in conjunction with other household duties may work best, like putting in a load while preparing a meal, or cleaning a near-by room.

d. Wash dark clothes together, white cottons together, light-colored and delicate fabrics together, etc.

e. As you take clothes from the washer, shake and organize them in the laundry basket before hanging them on the line. Consider hanging clothes for one person on one line, items for one room or closet on another, etc. Fold clothes as you take them from the line. Put them into the basket by room or family members to which they go.

f. If you use a dryer:

1. Dry loads according to color and weight of fabric.
2. Remove clothes from the dryer as soon as it stops. Hang garments on hangers as you take them from the dryer. Hang as many garments as possible, especially permanent press. I recommend plastic hangers. Put a few hooks on the laundry room to keep hangers handy.
3. Sort and fold clothes as you take them from the dryer according to family member and/or room.
4. If you don’t hear the dryer go off and clothes are wrinkled, rather than iron them, put them back into the dryer with a wet hand towel for 10 minutes.

g. Iron more often and in smaller amounts. Keep a spray bottle of water handy or use a steam iron.

h. Place 3 laundry baskets in your utility or closet (one white, one light and dark) making sure the size of each basket is 1 load of laundry, for your washing machine, so when the basket is full, you have one load. The idea is to eliminate the time it takes to sort the clothing; it’s already sorted for you.

i. Use cold water whenever possible.

j. Dry cleaning: clean garments only every 8 to 10 wearings; less frequently as possible. Dry cleaning is hard on fabrics.

1. As soon as you remove your garments, empty the pockets, shake the garments well, and hang them immediately.
2. Consider Scotchguarding new fabrics. The protection will last until the clothing is cleaned or washed. Then just spray again. Also, use Scotchguard on any fabric shoes; tennis shoes especially.
3. Rotate your dry clean clothing so it can regain it’s shape after wearing.

k. Blue Jeans: Everyone has a favorite pair of jeans. Wear a single pair of jeans two to five times before washing, unless soiled. It will save the fabric. You may want to fold them on a chair or hang on hanger; as soon as you take them off, so they don’t get wrinkled to re-wear. Hanging jeans on the line after laundering, rather than in the dryer will make them stiff and appear to be newer. This will extend the life of the jean.

Real strength is not just the condition of one’s muscle, but a tenderness in one’s spirit. ~ McCallister Dodds

Try some of these ideas to solve some of your daily problems. Pass on your favorite hints & tips.

Participate!

1. Get up early and keep moving. While sleeping or sitting, bodily processes slow down. Once they are speeded up, don’t let them slow down again until your work is done.

2. Fix and eat breakfast. Doctors say breakfast is the worst meal to skip. A family does better with a good breakfast and a “Have a good day, Hun.”

3. Have a short devotion. Ten minutes or so is vital as you commit the day to god and ask for his help in getting your work done and in doing it for Him. Too long a devotional may slow bodily processes. When work is done (after lunch) you may take an hour or so for study and prayer, and concentrate because your work is done.

4. Clean lightly first. Walk through the house asking, “If company came in one hour, what would I wish I had done?” This is especially important for church workers whose homes are likely to be visited at any hour without an appointment.

5. Check the day’s menu to see what foods need to be thawed, fixed ahead.

6. Do what needs done. Don’t spend time re-doing something you’ve already done just because it has been your routine to do it. Don’t dust until the house needs dusting. Vacuum when it needs vacuuming. Change sheets on the bed one at a time when they need it (every other week), not all on Monday (that’s why Monday is “blue”).

7. Start your more thorough cleaning in the hardest places. Get the unpleasant job over with first and the rest will move faster. Try It!

8. Have cleaning supplies all over the house in places where you need to use them. Example: Cleanser and sponge in medicine cabinet over the bathroom sink. (Be careful about this if you have small children: Safety first.

9. Keep your eyes open for new products on the market which will make some jobs easier.

10. Make your house easier to clean:
• Get rid of unnecessary things.
• Put decorative pieces away in three boxes; every six months or so, change and store the others away.
• Have a place for everything.

11. Think and plan when your hands are busy; plan the next day’s activities while ironing, washing dishes, etc. Check tomorrow’s menu for things to do ahead.

12. Serve meals on nicely set tables. Serving foods in the pans show a lack of taste and disrespect for the family.

13. Clean out drawers, mend and bake while on the phone. Get a cordless phone.

14. Teach other family members to help. It takes some extra time to teach a child to make his own bed, but he will save you time for the next fifteen years if he knows. Make cleaning charts with lists of everything that needs done and a place to check it off when finished. Have the rule, “everyone picks up his own messes.” Teach children that chores are something to be done before play. Prevents family losing respect for he mother because they know how hard it is to do all those things she does, and keeps them from treating her like the “house slave.” Women who do everything for every one ask for poor treatment and fail to prepare their children properly for marriage.

15. Be careful in your stewardship. Be efficient in making what you possess last. Mend garments before washing so they won’t tear in the washing machine. Treat spots and stains before washing. Cook from scratch, make your own mixes. Mend tears in furniture before it is beyond repair. Shop from a list, don’t impulse-buy; many people who complain about lack of money don’t make the best use of what they do have.

16. Purchase easy-care things such as permanent press sheets and pillow cases, children’s clothing, table cloths.

17. Before retiring at night, pick up clutter that has accumulated around the house. When you get up, the house is already neat-looking and easier to tackle.

18. Entertain regularly. You will keep the house better all the time, God will bless your generosity, and you will learn much by doing.

19. Don’t wait until everything in the house is perfect before you entertain, you will never get to it. People come to visit with you, not to inspect your house.

20. Plan ahead for company. Fix bread dough four days before they come, clean things that will stay clean three days before, fix casserole and do-ahead salad and dessert two days before and freeze them, clean house the day before and the day they come, do your hair, nails, rest, do last minute things and have plenty of time and energy to enjoy company.

A true man never frets about his place in the world, but just slides into it by the gravitation of his nature, and swings there as easily as a star. ~ Edwin H Chapman

Evan Montvel-Cohen, a Guam media executive who co-founded the liberal national radio network Air America, pleaded no contest in Circuit Court yesterday to a charge of first-degree theft.

His no-contest plea was part of a bargain with prosecutors who agreed to dismiss other charges of credit card fraud, forgery, money laundering and second-degree theft.

Deputy Prosecutor Christopher Van Marter said his office will not seek jail time for Montvel-Cohen if he pays about $30,000 in restitution to a former business associate here.

The money must be paid before Montvel-Cohen is sentenced July 28 by Circuit Judge Randal Lee. If the money isn’t repaid by sentencing, Van Marter said his office can ask for a jail sentence of up to 18 months.

Montvel-Cohen may ask Lee for a deferred acceptance of the no contest plea, a legal mechanism that would result in no criminal record if he stays trouble-free for a specified period of court supervision.

Use this formula to pre-treat ring around the collar and perspiration stains.
1/4 cup white vinegar
4 drops lemon, lime or eucalyptus essential oil
1 TBS baking soda

Combine all ingredients. Rub the mixture into the stains with your fingers, a soft cloth, or an old toothbrush. Launder as usual.

Perspiration Presoak #1
Try this fresh-smelling pretreatment before you wash.
1 cup vinegar
1/4 cup lemon juice
6 drops tea tree essential oil

Combine all ingredients and add to the clothes in a washer full of warm water. Allow to soak for an hour or two, then wash as usual.

Perspiration Presoak #2
This is another great vinegar-based stain remover.
1 cup vinegar
1/2 salt
3 drops tea tree essential oil
Place clothes in washer and add enough warm water to cover them. Combine all ingredients and add to washer. Let clothes soak for an hour or more, then wash as usual.

I am so excited.
I just got my cloth Chinese pre-folds in. (and the doublers I ordered)
I am amazed at the quality. I bought the diapers on sale, they are the stained and “retired” cloth diapers from a diaper service. But they are in such fabulous shape. They aren’t stained like I thought they were. Looks more like rust “pin” stick stains rather than poo stains. Plus some very tiny small holes in the top layer but for $1.00 each for a 4×8x4 I got such a great deal. The doublers are all new 8 ply and so incredibly soft. I can hardly wait to try them.
What a bargain for such great quality!!!!
I also got my imse vimse inserts in over the weekend. So all I need now are the diaper covers and we’re ready to start our cloth diapering adventure!

I’ve order 2 yards of PUL fabric which should come in this week and all I’ll need to do is to take the fabric to my seamstress who is currently working on the pattern and prototype. We’re almost there.
My husband is going to install a hose with a “spray” nozzle on it in the utility room so that I can clean/pre rinse the diapers more easily before laundering.

My adrenals say I have some explaining to do after last month.  I picture them standing in a nipped-waist floral house dress, tapping their high-heeled foot.

I am almost too tired to write a post, but not quite.  The momentum will keep me going once I start.

One weird thing about this move is that it leaves me very uneasy in a way that goes beyond the boxes and the construction-zone-ness of the space.  Uneasy and guilty.  It’s as if I am waiting for the gods to send a lightning bolt.  The hubris of living in a house three times as big as our tiny apartment!  It’s weird, but consistent with my character.

Likewise, as I was shopping for a washer I felt I was doing something wrong.  Decadent.  (Roman aristocrats, not chocolate.)  As I searched for the ideal washing machine to coddle the products of my expensive, intellectual, upper-middle-class hobby,* I thought of the women all over the world who wash their clothes in rivers, on rocks.

Actually, my parents made us a gift of the washer, which was lovely.  But then I felt guilty for parents who could afford to make a present of a washing machine.  Isn’t it dumb of me to have combined the over-sensitive perceptions of an aesthete with Evangelical guilt?  It’s a recipe for discontent; the trappings of Pietism are too ugly to bear, but Epicureanism has no moral rigor.  Ah lack-a-day.

Nice things about the house:

• small town
• central heat (We had individually controlled electric wall heaters in the duplex, some of which didn’t work properly.)
• the space (lots of it)
• happier husband (eventually)
• the yard (large enough to plant big plants and even select a tree or two–my most favorite game!)
• no always-at-home creepy landlord stealing my shovel ‘n stuff

Not so nice things about the house:

• small town (Der Mann’s very apt comment when we were walking around it after first seeing the house was, “R___  looks like it has a Hell Mouth.”
• central heat (improperly installed, it sends all the heat upstairs to make the bedrooms sweltering, while the downstairs is cold)
• the space (ugly and inconvenient new placement of walls and fixtures from a no-permits, down-to-the-studs remodel, ruined/lost woodwork)
• the yard, which I’m trying not to think about.  Literal tons of mostly-gravel fill dirt which discourages plant life and causes drainage toward the scary basement, topped with egg-sized river rocks.
• radon (not uncommon around here, but I sort of wish I hadn’t got the test since there is no way to reduce it when it is just barely within “acceptable” limits.)
• costs more to live here
• all the work we will have to do
• long bus commute for Der Mann

Best things about the house:

• troupe of half-grown wild kittens which provide constant entertainment when we look outside
• my new washing machine

The washer guilt faded as I had my first gigantic laundry day.  Thank you, thank you, and thank you again for your comments!  They gave me good things to think about.  After we returned the first washer, I realized that I am a clothes-washing anomaly.  You could call me an “active launderer.”  Or maybe a laundry witch?  I own a laundry stick*, for heaven’s sake!  I like access and control at every stage of the process.  This is because learned my textile-care habits from my grandmother, who learned them in wringer-washer days from her grandmother.

Granny loves clothes and fabrics, and she taught me to wash them in a case-by-case intuitive way, like cooking.  She grew up in the depression, and has never had much money since, so she is very attuned to making things last. . .  Pre-treating with Fels Naptha and other strange preparations, checking the water temperature to see if it feels right and adjusting the taps, stopping the machine mid-cycle to check on things.  Repeating cycles.  Manual extra rinses.  Always machine drying on low heat and hovering over the dryer to snatch things out at just the right moment.  Drip drying.  Flat drying.  Blocking.  In fact, she still has her grandmother’s copper wash boiler, and I have seen her use it!  So, I ended up with a top loader.

Older, more primitive machines are better match for “active launderers.”  Their faults are just the same as modern washers–some of them are too harsh or too wimpy with everyday loads–but you can get more customized results with fewer settings.  It’s pretty clear what your machine is doing at any one time, and you can step in to alter the process without much trouble.

That’s what I wanted: a durable machine that would allow me to make my own combinations of temperature, agitation speed, spin speed, and cycle length; though I also liked the idea of useful pre-sets, like the alternating agitate-and-soak of a handwash cycle.

I would have liked a water and energy efficient machine, but it appears (unless you have a front loader) that these things are in direct conflict with having brilliantly clean clothes.  I took the Epicure’s route.

It turns out one U.S. company still makes old-style washers.  My Sad Washer with the “automatic temperature control” was a top-loading Maytag Centennial.  My Happy Washer is a Speed Queen.  It’s dreamy.  My only objection is that the higher of the two spin speeds, though it is more RPMs than a standard washer, seems to leave the clothes damper than I’m used to.  Unless that is in illusion propagated by the fact that they aren’t twisted around each other and plastered to the outside of the tub.  Perhaps the spin cycle is shorter?  Anyway, they dry quickly in the dryer I bought off Thistledown-who-was-kicked-out-of-the-duplex, and the fact that they come out less wrinkled means that when I get a clothes line I can line-dry a lot of things without having to iron.

I washed a handwoven gauze shawl (not my own weaving) in the handwash cycle, and it came out fine.

*Sorry for the stereotyping.  Most of us don’t totally fit, but I was thinking how weaving looks from the outside, and to my guilty conscience.

*Dyers probably already know this, but a laundry stick is a roughly 1″ x 1″ by 20″ piece of milled hardwood with the sharp edges sanded down.  In wash-boiler days you’d use it to lift the wash from the boiler.  Now it is useful when you want to open up the washer after agitation starts to stir in laundry spells I mean soap preparations and prod down things like wool shirts that have just enough water resistance to balloon or float partly out of the water instead of immersing.  Last time Grandpa made her a new one, Granny asked me if I wanted one too, and I said, “Yes!”  I’m afraid I lost it in the move though.  Maybe to the landlord’s lumber pile.

Sorry for the lack of pictures.  We are on dial-up internet at the moment.  I now look forward to catching up on your blogs very s-l-o-w-l-y, unless (until?) we should make our pact with the devil, i.e. Comcast, i.e. the only fast internet in our new town.

But we are moved in.  All our possessions are out of the rain.  We left the apartment far cleaner than than our raw vegan musician nudist landlord left it for us.  He remarked as much, in his white tunic, when we woke him up from an afternoon nap to come do the walk-through.  “Here’s my old room!” he said fondly, turning to me for the indulgent approval he is accustomed to receive from women.  I smiled fixedly at him in my wet, filthy floor-scrubbing clothes.  Then he found the lavender bundles in the closet and wanted to know if we were leaving them.  I said we put them there because the closets smelled of cigarette smoke so we figured we’d leave them.  He perked up.  “So, do you burn them?”  (He definitely moves in the sweetgrass set.)

“No, they just sit in there and make it smell nice,” I explained.  (Does that mean I move in the lavender-in-the-closet set?)

I think he’d got a sudden poetical vision of lighting smudges and chanting our meat-eating, milk-drinking, vegetable-scorching spirits out of the empty apartment when we were gone.

Over the years I have thought a lot about the fact that a quarter (an eighth?) of the renters in the world do all of the cleaning.  Every time we’ve moved, Der Mann and I have cleaned the place we were leaving, then had to turn around and scrape somebody else’s thick layer of gunge out of the new one.  We move into dirty rentals and leave them clean: I can only assume some lucky few have the luxurious experience of moving into clean rentals and leaving them dirty.  Virtue is not its own reward, so what motivated me to clean house for these people?

For one thing, money was so tight we were always terrified of not getting our deposit back.  Yet I know for a fact that most landlords will settle for what I call “symbolic cleaning.”  Over the years I’ve observed, again and again, a bizarre landlord-obsession with burner pans.  Replace the burner pans, dump a gallon of bleach in the toilet, knock the crumbs out of the kitchen drawers, and you’re golden: no need to worry about the blobs of jam or crock pot full of moldy leftovers in the fridge, the 9 burnt-out lightbulbs, The gravy smears on the woodwork, the wall you’ve been using for a dart-board, or the pools of shampoo in the bathroom cupboard–he’ll turn a blind eye to those.  If, on the other hand, he’s the kind of landlord who doesn’t return deposits, nothing you can do will to make him give it back.

It’s not that I’m a neatnik.  Well, okay, a little, but only selectively.  While I am depressed by dirt, I weigh the cost of displacing of it very carefully.  I don’t like to crunch around on gritty floors, I think it’s important not to let goop settle on work surfaces, and no human being ought to have to use a gross bathroom.  Also, I have a thing about keeping the kitchen counters cleared in reaction to my mother.  (Her hoarding and her clinical OCD and are a deadly combination.)  But I loathe scrubbing and mopping floors.  And dusting.  And vacuuming.

I end up vacuuming every week or two for the sake of my dust allergies.  In terms of surface area, 80 percent of the dust settles on the floor, right?  As for the other 20 percent, despite the fact that it is a health issue and I find it extremely unpleasant to touch–nails on chalkboard, really–I go months without dusting.  And floors, oh, dear.  Back when we lived in a farmhouse with real linoleum in a speckled brown pattern I once went more than a year without mopping.  But see, we don’t spill much!  And when we do spill something, we wipe it up with soap and and water!  And we don’t wear our outside shoes in the house!

Regular spot cleaning and a household with only two adults is the only thing that makes this kind of piggery bearable.

But I’m talking about our everyday dirt, in our everyday lives.  We would never bequeath it.  That would be wrong.  Like leaving our dirty underwear slung on the chandeliers.  I’ve never faced dirty underwear in a new rental, though I once found dirty sweat bands and sweat socks that had been slung on the closet shelf.

We are still technically renters.  My parents are buying the house as a retirement investment, Der Mann and I are fixing it up.  My parents are paying for materials, we are supplying the labor.  Our rent is about the same as it was in the duplex.  However, since we loaned my parents part of the purchase price, it is also an investment for Der Mann and me.  When my parents sell, we’ll get our money back with a portion of the profit from the sale.

In case you are curious, I managed to de-paper, patch, re-plaster, sand and paint the bedrooms before moving day.  All the dog-pee carpets are gone.  Believe how bad they were when I tell you the nailed, splintering, painted and paint-splattered wood floors underneath are a big improvement.  The rest of the house is (Euphemism?  Let’s see, now…) in process.  I’m only half done painting the dining room.  It’s the largest room, and my loom and all the stuff that was going to go in there is crammed in the living room until my paint store gets another shipment of the paint I was using.

Still no washing machine.  We went through the drama of buying one, hauling it home, squeezing it through tight doors, unpacking it, and hooking it up, only find that “automatic temperature control” refers to an internal, non-adjustable thermostat which prevents washing at any temperature other than the factory pre-sets for “cold,” “cool,” “warm,” and “hot.”  The “hot” setting is lukewarm.  Adjusting the laundry taps, which is how I’ve always fine-tuned my wash temperature, did nothing.  It was late at night and I’d been breathing paint fumes for weeks straight when I made this discovery; I was literally pounding on the walls with my fists and weeping.  I stopped short of swinging a hammer through the plaster, which was what I really wanted to do–I knew I was the one who would have to patch the hole!  My poor Mann.  He was the one who suggested we could try to return it.  He did the dirty work.

From this:

to this:

But not until the end of the month.  In the mean time I am very busy and tired. Whelmed, but not over, if you know what I mean.  I hope to offer some updates later.  Does anyone know how you remove wood glue that someone has squirted liberally under all the lifting seams of wallpaper, directly onto improperly skim-coated sheet rock (gypsum board), without taking the paper off the sheet rock?

And as long as I’m asking for advice: can anyone tell me how front-loading washers treat handwovens?  Do you have one?  Do you like it?  I know they are more efficient than the old fashioned tub-and-agitator kind of washing machine, but I’m worried there would be not-enough swirly water going on, and too much slapping.  For the first time I am shopping for a major appliance, and I find that Consumer Reports doesn’t mention whether this or that washing machine is likely to tangle and unevenly shrink one’s handwoven yardages.

HA NOI — The State Bank of Viet Nam’s Anti-money Laundering Information Centre and the Ministry of Public Security’s Vietnam Interpol Office yesterday pledged to exchange information to counter money laundering in Ha Noi.

At the signing ceremony, which was attended by representatives from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the two sides committed to exchanging information on the function, responsibilities and rights of organisations and agencies in the process of eliminating money laundering and other means of financial support for crime.

The bank’s deputy governor, Tran Minh Tuan, said work on preventing and fighting money laundering and financial support for terror was the task of State authorised agencies. He added that it was an especially important task for the central bank, which is in charge of supervising doubtful banking transactions, and the Ministry of Public Security, which is responsible for fighting money laundering. —