A couple of visual culture cartoons (may come with a limited audience warning)
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Dishwasher-Loading Techniques Throughout History
July 31, 2016
Photograph by CSU Archives / Everett
The proper technique for loading a dishwasher is far from a settled matter, despite whatever you know who might say. Over the millennia, cultures have brought their own unique traditions and innovations to the task, and history has proved that various methods of arranging the dishes have worked just fine and have not been so stupid after all.
Paleolithic Age
Paintings on the walls of the Lascaux Caves, which date back some seventeen thousand years, depict a man and a woman standing on opposite sides of a grid that is almost certainly a single dishwasher rack. Dinnerware is arranged in rows: large plates at the front, saucers next, then bowls, mugs, and cups. The female figure has her arms folded.
Ancient Greece
Plato reasoned that the positioning of cups, bowls, and utensils was of secondary concern. He believed that an ideal cleaning could be achieved only through a precise placement of the plates in a circle, on the bottom rack. Itâs how he got his name.
Ancient Americas
The Incas were slow to adopt the dishwasher because of their ornate ceramic plates, which they feared might be hand-washable only. The Maya engaged in ongoing warfare (yaoyotl) over whether to place all the spoons together, all the forks together, and so forth, or whether to mix them all up in the silverware basket. Many died in battle.
Dynastic China
Confucius suggested that scraping off the food and pre-rinsing dishes in the sink was not always necessary but always wise.
Age of Enlightenment
Itâs hard today to believe that Copernicus could have drawn so much criticism for conceiving his system of facing cups downward rather than upward so as not to retain the soapy water. In retrospect, itâs really the only way that makes sense, but it was blasphemous in his time to alter any aspect of the accepted arrangement.
Renaissance Italy
Sketches attributed to Leonardo da Vinci indicate that he tested multiple dishwasher-loading configurations and at long last determined the nearest together you could place two plates before at least one of them really wouldnât get clean and youâd have to run it through again.
Elizabethan England
In Shakespeareâs sequel to âMuch Ado About Nothing,â âMuch More Ado About Nothing,â Benedick and Beatrice, now betrothed, argue energetically in several kitchen scenes. Benedick protests that he should be excused from loading the dishwasher because he isnât very good at it. Beatrice cheerily mocks him: âIf cloddishness allowed a leave of tasks, I fear your job behind our chamber door.â
Colonial America
Benjamin Franklin coined the phrase âbottom-rack-safe.â
Colonial India
Gandhi opposed detergent cubes, as they concentrated too much power in one place.
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21st Century Dordogne.
Two ravenous dogs lick each plate squeaky clean before they are put in the sink, where the lowest of the low in the hierarchy sends a jet of very hot water onto them before squirting a small amount of liquid in and washing vigorously with a long handled brush (the water is very hot!).
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Superglued my thumb and forefinger together earlier this evening.
Donât worry, everything is 
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A Tale of Two Cities begins with, âIt was the best of times, it was the worst of timesâ
Who would have thought Charles Dickens knew about quantum superposition?
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A doctor walked into a room full of patients at a mental institution, took out a pen, and drew a door on the wall. He then told all the patients that whoever wanted to escape should use that door. Immediately they all rushed towards it, but of course could not go through.
One patient remained sitting at the back of the room with a smile on his face. The doctor was surprised but pleased, thinking he must be cured, so he asked the patient why he didnât rush to the door. The patient whispered, âThey donât know that Iâm the one who has the key.â
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The George W Bush approach to photography. 
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No he wouldnât have picked it up!
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I Googled âLost medieval servantâ and it came back with âThis page cannot be found.â
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Two artists took part in a contest. It ended in a draw.
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