Are you serious? I do the dishes and take out trash/recycling (and other regular cleaning work) as an obvious matter of course to not live in a total stinky shithole. But also once a month we pay for a real service to do a serious cleaning that gets into all the corners and under furniture and ceiling and descaling in the bathroom (hard water) etc etc, which my SO wants kept up with and I think that's reasonable. Between kids, pets, guests and so on more accumulates in a house then trivial regular clean up deals with. They're not the same thing; everyone is expected to do their dishes and contribute to taking out the trash or other chores, but not necessarily to putting on heavier duty protective kit and dealing with bathroom tile or oven accumulation. And obviously there's a fee for that (and putting it off to 2-4 months isn't actually necessarily helpful if it ends up meaning each cleaning takes much longer and thus costs more).
Not having used in forever nor ever run an AirBnB, I will say that yes, I can see it being annoying to get charged if you were just there overnight and caused no issues. And I strongly think that anything which is part of standard practice after every single visit should also be part of the upfront price not a "fee". Extra fees should only be for unique things, like someone actually creating a big mess that takes extra time. But I also think basic humanity that takes a few minutes is different from something that takes an hour and extra equipment. If you leave a sink full of dirty dishes or trash laying around that's disrespectful, gross, will get worse much more quickly then dust bunnies. I'd be ok with dinging someone for that. Cleaners aren't lesser people servants, they're specialist professionals there to help not be maids to spoiled brats. A hotel room (or BnB) mini kitchen isn't a full service restaurant. If you want that level of help that to me feels reasonable to say is extra.
Comes across as double dipping to me if the cleaning fee is exorbitant AND the guest is expected to make an accommodation spotless before checkout.
I'm not in any way saying it's respectable to leave "a mess" in an accommodation which charges a cleaning fee, but a small amount of dirty dishes in a sink (if there is no dishwasher) or not having washed linen is not in my view leaving a place "in a mess" as the host is expected to do a certain amount of cleaning regardless since trusting guests to do it would be reckless and this can be unreasonably time consuming for guests and challenging if they have small kids.
If there is _no_ cleaning fee and the terms were clear that full clean-up of the accommodation is expected, then fair enough, guest saves on cost by doing the work themselves and if they don't they deserve a negative rating.
I guess AirBnb has found that many hosts use it as an excuse to penalize guests or to claim it's not the host's fault if the place was not clean on arrival of the next guest, so it's just simpler for AirBnb to set a baseline of host service expectation.
Dirty dishes are meant to be in the sink, and trash is meant to be in the trash can. There's no disrespect to cleaners by leaving things where they're meant to be. It doesn't make you a "spoiled brat".
If anything it means more of the $150 cleaning fee actually goes to the cleaners. Otherwise the cleaners only get paid for 30 minutes of light dusting and changing sheets while the owner pockets the rest.
I personally don't have a problem with xenophobia. I see it as the other side of the coin from openness to 'foreign' cultures and peoples. Both always exist in a society (opening up and shutting out) and you need both.
A people that don't have any xenophobia will have their country taken over and their culture erased. While also, a people that don't have any openness to foreign people and foreign cultures will stultify. You need both, in balance (and often that balance is shifting, in one direction or the other).
Thanks for letting me know that there was at least one other reader. It means a lot.
If you're at all interested in looking into the topic more deeply, I'd highly recommend this paper, showing just how deeply transmission west into the Hellenic world occurred, including bilingual koine Greek and Aramaic translations of Buddhist material:
There are possibly deeper, more controversial parallels--Naraka (Hell), punarjanman aka reincarnation (gennēthē anōthen or "born again"), Dhamma (Logos), the Triratna (the Trinity), dukkha/kamma (Khowba (חובא) -> opheilema/harmatia or debt/trespass), āpatti-paṭidesanā (confession), arhat (hagios or saints), etc. ad nauseam--but as you've seen, even provisionally entertaining these notions is beyond the ken for most in the West, whether academic, religious, or otherwise. Elsewhere in Buddhist thought there are also forms like Pure Land that end up resembling certain strains of later Christian forms, despite independent genesis.
But ultimately, whether my perspective is true or not, or whether the metaphysical claims between the traditions differ (they do, especially at this point in time), the right course of living isn't really that different broadly between the two traditions--focus on one's own conduct rather than others, do good for others in the world and not merely oneself, forgive others, and always keep in mind that there is a moral law in the universe that is inescapable in its consequences. If you struggle to do it yourself, find others pursuing the same goals, and you'll eventually find the way.
It's a pity because the material she is covering, the fever of Elizabethan rhetorical inventiveness, including in the written form, is so rich & interesting.
She pulls out useful detail & quotes but then links it together with her own overwritten & eccentric prose.
I don't like the two examples of parenthesis used in the title & subtitle of this piece, where they put wonderful and perfect in parentheses before a noun phrase.
Putting adjectives in parentheses before a noun (phrase) is, yes, a useful device but those adjectives should usually be words that give more (but not necessary) information, rather than purely subjective qualifiers such as the two that the author uses. I know they're probably being a bit tongue in cheek but it still grates a little that these were the two examples they led with.
Well, you’re getting more information about the author’s subjective opinion (which they may have deemed unnecessary to include in the main, non-parenthesised text).
I'm not seeing it. If there isn't a dishwasher then you do the dishes.
I'm not a fan of Airbnb but I agree with the GP that you should clean up after yourself in this respect (cleaning dishes that you have used).
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