Those seven words are from a Clear + Vivid podcast moiself heard several weeks back. The subject was…many subjects. It’s an episode I can’t find now – which Ifindironic in that one of the episode’s topics was discerning regular/age-related forgetting v. dementia-type forgetting. The podcast’s guest explained why, for example, I can tell you what I had for dinner eight *years* ago on a warm summer evening with my daughter in Paris bistro, but I likely can’t remember what I had for dinner eight weeks (or even days) ago.
There is a science (as in, cognitive strategies) to make meaningful memories at any age. However, as C+V host Alan Alda and his guess discussed, people would rather have the science behind such discoveries lead to a Magic Pill® to boost memory (or anything else). This is because – surprise! – we evolved to be…well…effing lazy. [3]
* * *
Department Of Mark Your Calendars:
“You keep accusing me of blasphemy all of the time,
but I cannot be convicted of a victimless crime.”
First things first: get the silly Old Testament proscriptions out of the way:
Eli, Saul – y ‘all heard? Life is great; nothing’s unclean! Shrimp rolls, anyone?
In the spirit of ecumenicism, a gentle dig at those gentle Zen Buddhists:
Get real, Grasshopper The sound of one hand clapping Sounds just like one clap
I’ll kill two birds with one stone in this swipe at a tenet of many forms of Hinduism
and Buddhism and – wait, make that three birds! – the New Age/past lives crowd:
Reincarnation? Right – get a life! But next time Come back with some proof
And of course, no Blasphemy Day contest would be complete without a California surfer’s
take on the Christian sacrilege that was heliocentric theory:
Telescope; awesome. So, like, we spin around them? Copernicus, dude!
For several years there have been Blasphemy Day t-shirt slogan contests, inspired in part by a United Nations resolution meant to pacify uber-sensitive Islamists. But that resolution was the very reason I took a “why bother/what’s the point?” attitude toward composing a Blasphemy Day slogan (or even haiku) for Islam. I mean, considering the possible reactions, who is going to wear a shirt poking fun at something that mandates death to fun-pokers?
The oft-quoted [7]Robert Ingersoll was one of the most notable orators and speechmakers and civil rights activists of his time (post-Civil War America)…yet few remember him today. Trained as an attorney, ’twas his oratory tours – speaking on topics as wide-ranging as Reconstruction period to Shakespearean literature to religion to science – that made him famous. He was…”the friend of Presidents, literary giants like Mark Twain, captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie, and leading figures in the arts. He was also beloved of reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other Americans considered themselves his enemies, (as he bitterly opposed the Religious Right of his day. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate of science and reason. More, he argued for the rights of women and African-Americans. Ingersoll also praised the virtues of family and fireside. And he practiced what he preached. Contemporary sources say Ingersoll enjoyed almost idyllic contentment in family life. Opponents frequently despaired of finding anything to disparage in his personal life.” [8]
* * *
May you value your daily habits more than your magic pills; May you prize making memories over conserving energy; May your opponents despair of finding anything to disparage in your personal life; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] Translation: Nurture once again trumps nature, in that your lifestyle – your daily habits, from what you eat, how much you sleep, how you move through the world) are more impactful on your health and longevity than any magic pill ever will or could.
[3] “We evolved to conserve energy” – sounds more respectable, doesn’t it?
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Department Of I’m Not The First Person To Notice This
Lately it seems as if every interaction with business employees – e.g., someone helping me out at a store, or when I’m ordering at a restaurant – the employee comments on my order and/or choice, in superlative terms. Excellentand perfectseem to be the semantic pinnacles du jour.
Client: “I’d like the sides a little shorter than usual.” Hair Stylist: “Awesome!”
Customer: “I’ll have the soup of the day, no croutons, please.” Waiter: “Excellent!”
Customer: “Would you please add a gingersnap cookie to my order?” Deli clerk: “Perfect!”
It doesn’t frost my butt the way some other verbal tics do, although moiself has the usual complaints re how overusing and/or misapplying words dilutes their significance. But since there isn’t much in my life right now wherein, say, a committee is going to award me certificates for excellence in anything, I’ll gladly sit with the knowledge that the barista apparently considered my pomegranate tea choice to be impeccable.
* * *
Department Of Almost Bought The Book….
A just-released cookbook, that is. Then I read the book author’s introduction ( I’m so glad online booksellers have this option ):
“Let’s get one thing out of the way. I’m not a vegetarian. No, no! Don’t go anywhere. If you’re looking for labels, I can give you a few. I’m Tanya, an editor for Cooking and Foods at the The New York Times. I’m a Leo (Aries rising, Libra moon)….”
Hi Tanya, I’m Robyn, a reader of your The Veggie newsletter. As per your mythological bullshit astrology identity, I’m a Stradivarius whose gorge rises [1] at the mere hint that asentient being with an IQ larger than her bra size would give enough to credence to astrology so as to state her zodiac sign as an identifying characteristic. And my moon is…well, that’s me at the monitor, figuratively mooning your amiable idiocy.
While I was cautiously (as in, with reservations [2] ), looking forward to your book it’s highly unlikely I’m going to spend $ on it now. Instead, let me recommend a good read to you: Carl Sagan‘s The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. [3] The entire book is a must-read, but if you’re pressed for time (or just lazy), check the index and read the pages dealing with astrology. Here’s a sneak preview:
“Astronomy is a science—the study of the universe as it is.
Astrology is a pseudoscience—a claim, in the absence of good evidence, that the other planets affect our everyday lives.” ( This quote is from Sagan’s book, Cosmos.
Those that follow are from The Demon-Haunted World )
“[Horoscopes] are consciously designed to be so vague
that they could apply to anybody …”
“Astrologers cannot even agree among themselves what a given horoscope means.” [4]
“Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many real cases like this: one twin is killed in childhood in, say, a riding accident or struck by lightning, while the other one lives to a prosperous old age. Supposed that had happened to me. My twin and I would have been born in exactly the same place and within minutes of each other, exactly the same planets would be rising at our births. If astrology were valid, how would we have such profoundly different fates?…”
“How could the rising of Mars at the moment of my birth affect me, then or now? I was born in a closed room. Light from Mars couldn’t get in. The only influence of Mars which could affect me was its gravity. But the gravitational pull of the obstetrician was much larger than the gravitational influence of Mars. Mars is a lot more massive, but the obstetrician was much closer.”
* * *
Department Of Editing Mishaps That Make Me Feel Better Sub-Department Of I’ve Never Tried That Recipe Before….
This oopsie is from our CSA’s weekly newsletter, [5] in which the farmers let us know what veggies will be in our weekly portion and share other farm-related news:
The tomatoes made a comeback only to be sprinkled with rain and dew again….
We roasted a good chunk of the peppers which can now be frozen and fucked away for stews and sauces during the winter.
Um…well…ok. Always looking for a way to liven up those stews and sauces.
“Don’t even think about it, lady.”
* * *
Dateline: last Wednesday, circa 1:30p. I did some grocery shopping on my way to pick up our produce share (from the afore-mentioned CSA), and treated moiself to a copy of Cook’s Illustratedmagazine. I do this every once in a while, even though over half of the recipes in the magazine are of little use to me since I don’t eat meat or dairy. It’s the cover illustrations that get me. The magazine’s current (number 202; Sept/Oct) cover makes okra, both whole and sliced, look like exotic flora from another galaxy.
One of my favorite sections in the magazine is Quick Tips, wherein readers send in their innovative and easy ways to perform cooking-related tasks. [6] Examples from the current issue include a home cook who repurposes used plastic gift cards as nonstick dish cleaners (“Gift Card Turned Pan Scrubber”); another who found that a clean fine-mesh laundry bag can be used for squeezing water from thawed frozen veggies (“A Tip for Squeezing Excess Water From Spinach); another who uses a vegetable peel to shave a piece of a celery stock to serve as a tie for a bouquetgarni (“An Edible Substitute for Kitchen Twine”)….
Before heading to the farm I got a lunch at a local café, where I opened the magazine and turned to the Quick Tips section. I tried to explain to the servers why I was chuckling to moiself, after reading a QT with the caption, Keep Burritos Warm.
Keep Burritos Warm.
I guess that’s an issue for some folks, but, really…keep burritos warm.? This may be the first time in my life I have encountered that phrase. Here’s the QT in its entirety:
“Keep Burritos Warm When____ (reader name) wants to take a burrito on the go, she keeps it warm and intact by sliding it into her thermal travel mug. The burrito fits neatly inside for easy carrying, and the insulated walls keep it warm until she is ready to eat.”
Indeed, it is a handy tip, if keeping burritos warm is a concern of yours, But for some reason it struck me as…silly, and profoundly funny. Later that day, when I tried to explain to MH what I found so amusing about that particular QT, it took me several minutes before I could speak without giggling. Finally, I was able to choke out that “…it reminds of Three Word Slogan! Three Word Slogan! What you put on a protest sign and/or chant at a political rally.”
No More Kings! Yes We Can! No Nukes Now! Stop the War! Keep Burritos Warm!
A mere three words brought me to my knees (translation: brought my forehead to the table). And now, how many paragraphs did I just write about a three word caption?
* * *
Department Of Be Careful What You Ask, Even Rhetorically
Writer and commentator Molly Jong-Fast recently published a New York Times Opinion essay ( “I’m Not Going to Lie About My Neck” ) wherein she revealed and defended her decision to undergo plastic surgery shortly after she turned 47.
According to Jong-Fast, her physical appearance is directly tied to her livelihood, and she felt pressured by our youth-obsessed culture [7] to either conform to beauty standards to prolong her career or step back from “the arena” and face her inevitable marginalization. In her essay she rhetorically asked if opting for cosmetic surgery is “cheating” and if it makes her a “bad feminist” by reinforcing patriarchal beauty norms. Then she chickens out advocates for a revised definition of feminism that does not heap “hostility” on those who have plastic surgery and which “respects individual autonomy and survival choices under a male-gaze-oriented culture.”
It was one of the odder versions of “you go girl/whatever makes you feel good about yourself, “ written by a herself *for* herself, that I’ve ever run across. A good portion of the comments to Jong-Fast re the article (sampled below) revealed that many if not most of the article’s readers had similar feelings as moiself:
“Does it make you a bad feminist? Of course it does! We succumb to our own insecurities first, and then the ever-present male gaze, and even fiercer female gaze. As long as we keep succumbing to the cultural expectation of youth, there will be no way out….”
“Curious if you feel similarly about operations/treatments that aren’t as normalized, such as skin bleaching? Colorism is still alive and well in this country, but I very much doubt anyone would attempt to defend such a treatment…”
“It’s not that women who have plastic surgery are cheating. I don’t care what other women do to try to change themselves (though I do feel bad for women who believe that they aren’t good enough as is). The problem is that the more people who do ‘cheat’, the greater the price is for those of us who don’t. The more conformity there is to impossible ideals, the greater the momentum is toward impossible ideals. That harms us all.”
“As the mother of two daughters…I do not want to send them the message that it’s not ok to age because it’s happening to all of us…when I’m 70, I’m not going to fool anyone into thinking I’m 40 – no matter what I do…. I can’t agree with you that your choice was to conform to the standards of beauty or reject them and lose your career. There are examples of women in the public eye who aren’t doing this… At 63, I am still on Zoom calls most days and no, I don’t like the way my neck looks or the wrinkles around my eyes and mouth. But I’m never going to be 43, 33 or 23 again. Instead of trying to be, why not be an example for my daughters so they know aging is natural and ok?”
“Does that make you a bad person or a bad feminist? No. But it is a sad commentary on our culture that women feel that need at all. I hope by the time your daughter reaches your age she feels more confident in the world.”
“It is not ‘hostility.’ That is reframing to tell a narrative. You are buying in, and it is depressing. It is your choice to give your power away to ‘men’ and ‘society’s’ obsession with youth. For what, smoke and mirrors and a media ecosystem that promotes what exactly? Anything positive? Or just more of the same darkness?
*Molly, it doesn’t make you a bad feminist, it makes you a selective one. (and I, Robyn, would add here, and it makes you a cowardly one). Succumbing to the misogyny but cloaking it in professional demands is a cop out. You say that one’s level of perceived attractiveness or unattractiveness drives inequality in the workplace and society, but don’t note that plastic surgery worth tens of thousands of dollars is completely out of reach for the majority of women, driving further inequality.
“If our lives are controlled by a set of traffic signals in the sky, why try to change anything?” ( American scientist, professor, author, science educator Carl Sagan )
* * *
May you read The Demon Haunted World if you haven’t already; May you find a better use for your peppers than f***ing them away; May you remember that you no longer have any excuse *not* to Keep Burritos Warm®; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Reference for you young’uns unfamiliar with the idiom: One is disgusted or sickened by something. (The “gorge” is the stomach: “I could never be a doctor. Blood, vomit, open wounds—the gorge rises at it.” Definition from The Free dictionary ).
[2] Wondering how many of the recipes I’d actually be interested in, as her newsletter contains many with egg and dairy ingredients (vegetarian, but not entirely plant-based)
[3] Actually, there is nothing about this book that would make me recommend it solely to Tonya; I think *every* person should read it, as a good guide to evaluating evidence, learning skeptical and critical thinking, and thus developing your own “baloney detection kit”.
[4] The book describes examples of scientists testing astrology by, for example, having contradicting horoscopes given to astrology believers and printed in newspapers and testing the believer’s reactions….it’s worth the read just for these entertaining examples of human gullibility.
[6] They receive a complimentary one-year subscription to the magazine for each tip CI decides to publish.
[7] : Jong-Fast is a political commentator who appears frequently on television and digital video screens.
[8] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
As a longtime reader of (select) advice columns, moiself has come to think that they can open an interesting window into human motivations and behaviors. Over the years I have noticed an irritating pattern to many of the letters sent by advice-seekers: ( trigger alert: massive generalization ahead)
* A man will report his emotions sans even the slightest modicum of introspection
( “Why doesn’t she understand how she’s annoying me?!?!?” );
* A woman will report her emotions and second-guess herself ( she reports an astoundingly annoying thing – a thing that would even piss off Mr. Rogers or the Dali Llama – which was said or done to her, yet asks, “Am I right to be annoyed by ___?” )
“Yes, you can stop second-guessing yourself, sweetie, your boss really is a flaming asshat.”
Aside from the indisputable entertainment value of kitten-bops-enormous-dog’s-nose videos, social media ‘s worth goes up a few notches when you consider how it can be an effective way of transmitting insightful observations and analyses about the politics of personal relationships. One such analysis which I recently came across online (from “The Inner Pattern” ) addressed and partially explained the roots behind the complicated advice-column-letter-dynamic moiself mentions above.
What’s the most damaging thing patriarchy ever pulled off? Convincing everyone that male anger counts as objective reality, but female emotions get filed under subjective instability.
Watch how differently the same emotion gets treated depending on who’s feeling it. He slams a door and it’s “he had a rough day.” She raises her voice once and it’s “she needs to calm down.”
His frustration gets a cause. Hers gets a diagnosis.
We grew up watching men’s reactions get treated as data — something to analyze, respond to, take seriously. Meanwhile women’s reactions got treated as noise — something to soothe, dismiss, or wait out. So, we learned early to run our own feelings through a filter before anyone else even heard them. Is this reasonable enough? Am I being too sensitive? Will this get taken seriously or will it just get me labeled?
That filter isn’t caution. It’s conditioning. It’s decades of being taught that our inner world needs to justify itself before it’s allowed to exist.
Your anger was never irrational. It was just never given the same benefit of the doubt his got by default. (my emphases, FB, first seen by moiself on 9-5-26)
* * *
Department Of There Goes The Neighborhood
Dateline: The morning of August 5; SeaTac airport; Alaska Airline’s first-class lounge; waiting to board our flight to Iceland. Checking out the massive, multi-buffet table breakfast spread set out for the lounge passengers I see that, on the end buffet table, there is a contraption that look like a 3-D printer. This machine is labeled, “pancake printer,” and moiself alerts my family to its presence. None of us actually want a pancake, but we have to see how it works, and so I press its start button.
Five seconds after I start the pancake printer a woman walks past the side of the buffet table and eyes my family with confusion. She is dressed in that casual money style [1] and holds a plate of pastries which looked like they’d have French-sounding names. Meanwhile, my family – MH in his tie-dye tee, son K in his black leather jacket /death metal band shirt, daughter Belle in her in Pacific NW/Columbia lumberjack gear, and me in my CatZilla t-shirt – is crowded around the pancake printer.
I remain standing while the rest of my family bends forward, practically down on their knees, as they watch a blob of (ostensibly) pancake batter make its way down a series of the printer’s criss-crossing cooking treadmills. I make eye contact with the woman, and with widened eyes and a knowing nod of my head, I project (or so I intend) an amiable, joking, yeah right – like we’ve never seen a pancake before vibe. In return, her facial expression and body language…
Oh, how can I put it? So much attitude is succinctly and clearly expressed in the rolling/stink eye stare she flings toward me and mine:
“OMG, who let the Beverly Hillbillies into the first class lounge !?!”
Y’all come back now for the pancake breakfast, y’ hear?
* * *
Department Of Yeah, The Date… September 11 Memories
Twenty-five years ago, since those horrific ( and/yet mesmerizingly cinematic [2] ) terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. So much has changed in our nation; so much of that change is not for the better, and so much of this not-for-better change has been and is attributed to needing to Get Tough On Terrorism®.
I remember the unscripted eloquence of British PM Tony Blair, who interrupted his planned speech on a domestic issue to express his profound shock and sympathy for the American people and pledge his and his country’s full support for his allies.
I remember the stark contrast of Blair’s heartfelt articulateness with the glassy-eyed, aardvark-caught-in-the-headlights expression of the clearly-not-up-to-the-gravity-of-what-lies-ahead “leader” which was George W. Bush. The only solace I had been able to take from GWB’s mistaken ascendency to the presidency was that, up until 9-11, he had seemed destined to be a one-term president.
“Uh, Dad? Dick Cheney? Somebody, tell me what to do…”
But I’ll let the pundits and historians elaborate on that. After all these years, moiself is more interested in the personal stories – select memories, from those at Ground Zero and those of us across the country and out of the country [3] – of we who were affected by the attacks. It is the stories of our reactions, the memories of that impactful, holy-shit-am-I-watching-a-movie-or-is-this-real ?!?!?! day, which we will impart to our children who were too young to remember (or who were born after) the 9-11 attacks.
Moiself will always know that September 11, 2001 was on a Tuesday, because I was in my home office that morning, getting ready to leave for my Tuesday 7 am book club. I gathered my book club items – coffee mug, [4] purse, jacket, the book the group was currently discussing – and stepped out of the office. Before I could head down the hallway to the garage, I looked up at the sound of MH’s voice.
MH was standing in the upstairs hallway, leading against the stairway railing, a confused look on his face. He said he’d been listening to NPR’s Morning Edition, [5] which had just reported that an airplane had hit one of New York City’s World Trade Center Twin Towers. I replied that I remembered reading, several years ago, that a small/private plane had collided with a large sky scraper in some big city – I found that to be an odd and accident, as you’d think the pilot could see such an enormous building in his path…
MH, still confused, said, no, this was a commercial-sized jet, and the report was that less than a half hour later another jet hit the second tower, and “…what kind of air traffic control mixup or other accident could account for…”
I gasped as I interrupted him: “TWO jets? That’s no accident.”
After listening to a few news reports I grimly drove to book group, which met in the pastor’s office of our local UCC church. [6] Every member of the book group showed up, despite or because of having heard the news. We all had the same feeling: we wanted to be together. I was one of the last to arrive, and made my entrance feelings-first:
“Well, we are ALL FUCKED. This is how wars start.”
I forget the name of the book we were discussing. The leader of the group, the pastor, obviously felt some obligation to try to steer us toward the book, even as she was glassy eyed with shock and worry (her beloved sister-in-law was a flight attendant who often worked the American Airlines route from Boston to LAX) . [7] But (of course) we spent most of the morning discussing the attacks, speculating about all that we knew and did not know, and what might happen in the days to come.
Two weeks later, when details of the terrorist plot were being revealed, the book group again set aside our book for the day and mostly discussed the attacks. One of the group members brought in an article he’d been reading, written by a foreign correspondent who’d been researching the recruiting process for Islamist terrorist groups. The article addressed a seemingly unfathomable question: given the human instinct for preserving one’s own life, how do you recruit young men for a suicide mission? The book club member began reading the article’s list of commonalities found among the terrorist recruits:
“…strong ties to hard-core religious beliefs; weak ties to their own families; political idealism; religious and cultural conservatism – and while not necessarily virgins themselves, the young men were attracted by the enticement that their martyrdom would be a righteous deed which would earn them a shortcut to heaven, where they would enjoy the sexual attentions of 72 dark-eyed virgins….”
I heard my own snorting-with-ridicule interruption as if it were coming from somewhere other than my own mouth:
“Yeah, right – that shows you what kind of mindset fanaticism appeals to. What kind of sexually ignorant, inexperienced idiots want – I mean, seventy-two *virgins*? That’s an enticement? Give them just one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing…”
I looked around the circle at my book comrades’ wide-eyed, Is that so? expressions, and thought, maybe middle-aged moiself should have kept that to moiself?
* * *
* * *
Department Of Not One Damn Recipe
I recently got a new cookbook, which is one of my favorite things to get. Cookbooks – moiself tends to read livres de cuisine like novels, as in, getting inspiration from more than actually following a recipe step by step. After reading through this new book I found moiself wondering, Why did I order this?
The book’s recipes concentrate on a culture whose cuisine is mostly unfamiliar to me – as do several cookbooks in my collection, so it’s not that. Sourcing many of the key ingredients would be difficult, but…see previous comment. It’s just that there was not one recipe that stood out, not onerecipe that made me think, I’d like to try that, or work up a variant moiself. My get a new one get rid of an old one policy, [8] has kept my cookbook supply steady at seventy-four. And it will remain at 74 as this new book goes into the list of sixty cookbooks I have recycled. [9]
A cigarette pack is one of the few consumer products…that practically insults its own customer. Buy a pack and you are greeted by…blunt declarations that your habit may kill you. Governments force tobacco companies to confess the danger directly on the packaging because the evidence is overwhelming: smoking causes cancer, cardiovascular disease, respiratory illness, and millions of deaths annually….
Yet the satirical image asks a deeply uncomfortable question: if cigarettes require warning labels because they can harm human beings, why do religions—whose histories include crusades, inquisitions, sectarian wars, terrorism, witch hunts, executions for heresy, honor killings, forced conversions, and systematic oppression—escape similar scrutiny?
The meme…exposes an asymmetry in moral outrage. Society treats physical harm as measurable and ideological harm as sacred.
The irony is brutal. A cigarette company cannot advertise without legal constraints, but a preacher can tell children they deserve eternal torture for doubting a doctrine and still be called a moral authority. Tobacco executives are condemned for manipulating fear and addiction, while some religious institutions have built entire civilizations around fear of invisible punishment….
Imagine if holy books carried labels modeled after cigarette warnings:
WARNING: This ideology has been linked to violence, intolerance, and persecution when interpreted literally.
WARNING: Excessive exposure may impair critical thinking and increase susceptibility to authoritarianism.
(from my supply of stickers I carry with me when I travel, in case the hotel room has a Gideon bible or other religious book in the dresser drawer.)
* * *
May you see your emotional reactions as data, not noise; May you practice the get a new one get rid of an old one policy; May you benefit from the experience of even one middle-aged woman who knows what she’s doing; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Like pornography, I know it when I see it, even if I can’t describe it…and so can you.
[2] I watched footage of the two places crashing into the towers, over and over, in a way trying to convince myself that it was real – it seemed like something out of a movie…but CGI was in its infancy then, and a Hollywood special effects crew couldn’t possibly have pulled off such an epic job.
[4] That was the one day a week that I drank coffee in the morning.
[5] Which was his Monday – Friday morning routine, before he got out of bed and we got our kids breakfast and ready for school.
[6] The church MH and I were members of for years, until we came out of the Happy Heathens® closet.
[7] She had no news about her SIL at that time, but later that day was assured that her SIL was not working that day.
[8] Which I apply to most “things,” from cookbooks to household items to clothing….
[9] As in given away to friends and/or family and/or Goodwill.
[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
…though, damn, I’d seriously consider it if there were a snowball’s chance in Chuck E. Cheese. [1] that one of the countries would want me.
First blog back from vacation. There’ve been four weeks of reruns in this space, and a part of moiself is still on Iceland time – WE WENT TO ICELAND AND SAW THE TOTALITY OF THE SOLAR ECLIPSE AND OTHER COOL THINGS, WOO-HOO!
Confession: we were *IN* the zone of totality, but it was cloudy in the Westfjords region where we were staying (of course it was, after a beautiful/sunny morning) during the early evening hours of the eclipse. So we got the instead ofversion of the event. Even so, what we were able to see was way cool/eerie, in a way that made me think that had we been living centuries ago and had no idea that the eclipse was coming and/or what were the forces behind it, we might have said to ourselves, “Holy solar obscurance, ourselves! The gods must be pissed with us – quick, go find a virgin or six and drop ’em into a volcano….”
What the totality of the eclipse did not look like in the Westfjords, Iceland
* * *
Departments Of Notes From A Civilized Way Of Life
Inspired by this trip, plus our visits to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland four years ago ( The Vacation Schedule I’m Not Maintaining, 7-1-22), here are some of moiself’s randomly organized observations about Iceland in specific and the Norse countries in general.
* I lost track of how many times, when I was impressed by Icelanders’ friendliness and hospitality and invited them to visit my state, the genteel Icelanders told me they’d love to take me up on my invitation to visit my country…but would only do so when we get “… a new government.”
* Many Icelanders were most eager to enter into a discussion of our federal government’s “leadership crisis” (much more than MH and I were), and they revealed that in many ways they knew a lot more about what was going on in the US than most US citizens.
I got the impression (and was told so directly by several Icelanders) that Americans don’t seem to be aware of how our country’s actions affect the rest of the world. Icelanders do not forget this, and are reminded of it almost daily, especially when our crusty orange Commander-In-Thief confuses their country with Greenland and blames them for our stock market failings.
* Quiet. The quiet. Standing still, I can hear the sound of… quiet? In the Iceland countryside (which is most of Iceland), outside the major city of Reykjavik…but even in parts of their Big City ®, there is less clatter, more quiet.
* All toilets should be European style (dual flush)
* All bedding for couples (queen or king beds) should be like this: ditch the top sheet and instead [2] use two duvets. [3]
* All public toilets/restrooms/WCs should be individual stalls, floor to ceiling walls, with WCs separate from hand-washing area
…preferably unisex but separate gender also okay
* This is the last toilet-related entry, moiself promises. The public bathroom situation in Iceland: at the tourist attractions of the country’s natural wonders (waterfalls; glaciers; waterfalls; geothermal mudpits and geysers, more waterfalls) there is either free parking and pay WCs, or free WCs but you pay for parking. And these WCs are functional, available, and clean.
* Roundabouts please, not stop signs/stoplights.
* Iceland is basically a cashless society (as were Denmark, Sweden and Norway). And speaking of a ___ less society….
* Please oh please oh please can we do whatever it takes to get a tipless society?
Of course people will have to be willing to pay higher prices for higher wages. [4]
Guess what: it seems you don’t have to bribe people to get them to provide competent and friendly service. The traditional venue associated with tipping in the USA, food/restaurant establishments – the service was good to excellent in no-tip Iceland.
* * *
Department Of I Had Good Food While Traveling – And Now This Food For Thought.
Before embarking on our Icelandic adventure moiself had read a piece on travel philosophy or style, if you will. This article from in the Seattle Times will be quite controversial, I’ve no doubt. The author addresses ideas I’ve been struggling with re my own past trips and desire for future travel.
“…For the past decade, the travel industry’s golden rule has been to live like a local: Shun the tourist traps, skip the hotels and embed yourself in residential enclaves to find true authenticity.
I’ve had a front-row seat to this gentrification with a passport…I’m writing this from an Airbnb in Newmarket, a neighborhood in Auckland, New Zealand, and it’s located between a car repair shop and a Chinese grocery store.
Let’s stop this disruptive force…. Experts say it displaces residents, inflates housing costs and ruins the neighborhoods you claim to love. Maybe the most ethical — and enjoyable — way to travel now is to stop pretending you live there and embrace your status as a tourist….
The problem with living like a local is simple math: When everyone does it, no locals are left. Tourists push out the very communities they claim to love….
The cost of this fantasy is real housing. Short-term rentals strip homes from the market.
Jennifer Kaplan, a sustainability strategist, argues you can’t find an authentic experience in a hollowed-out neighborhood….
‘When authenticity becomes commercialized at scale,’ she says, ‘it loses its authenticity by definition.’
Why do we persist? Ego. Thomas Plante, a psychology professor at Santa Clara University, suggests we are driven by ‘virtue signaling and narcissism.’ We want to feel superior to the masses on the tour bus. We want to be travelers, not tourists. But by refusing to visit the places built for us, we destroy the places built for others….
The alternative is the one thing we are trained to avoid: the tourist trap.
Urban planners and sustainable tourism experts argue that designated tourist areas — often derided as “traps” — act as necessary protective barriers for a destination. They concentrate the noise, the trash and the crowds in areas designed to handle them, leaving residential neighborhoods for, you know, the residents….
If you want to avoid gentrification with a passport this summer, you don’t have to give up on culture. You just need to change your approach.
‘Why not act like a tourist *and* a local?’ asks Thomas Swick, author of the memoir Falling into Place. ‘Stay in a hotel, but eat where the locals eat. Visit the sights one day and explore neighborhoods the next. Embracing both identities will result in a broader and richer experience.’
“Only a fool could believe that a god who serenely watched over the slaughter of innocents over and over and over again would answer their prayers about anything.”
( exceprt, Let’s Grow up and Cut the Bullshit: Burying the Lies of the Ancients,” by Jester Crank )
* * *
May you work for the change that will makeall those lovely Icelanders want to visit our country; May you enjoy bed linen and WC modernisms of Scandinavian design; May you ditch the virtue-signaling and travel like a respectful tourist; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] My version of the hell I don’t believe exists. Chuck EC comes close.
[2] As was the case in *every* hotel/airbandb/inn we stayed in ( in Iceland, and also in the majority of our lodgings during our Scandinavian travels).
[3] Known as “The Scandinavian Sleep” method, couples sleeping in the same bed use two separate duvets rather than sharing a duvet. The separate bedding allows each person to sleep how they want ( e.g., heavier or lighter covering; off or on or partial covering) without disturbing their partner, avoiding the need for two separate beds despite differing sleep habits and preferences.
[4] Higher wages, not to be confused with “a living wage,” which is a phrase bandied about that often has nothing to do with the realities of jobs, as in, traditionally entry level jobs are just that – entry level, meant for training/stepping stones to positions with more difficulty and responsibility. Burger flipping was never intended to be a career that can support a family of four.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Moiself sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.
* * *
The Fond Childhood Memories I’m Not Reliving ( 8-28-20 )
Department Of Now I’ve Seen Everything
Dateline: Wednesday, circa 4pm, outside a grocery store. A woman who exited the store ahead of me scurries to a spot around 30 feet from the store’s exit door. She pulls a cigarette and lighter from her purse, pulls down her mask and lights up. She proceeds to take several long, desperate drags of the cigarette, pulling her mask up inbetween, in a bizarre ritual: lower mask; suck on her death sticks; exhale; raise mask; wait five seconds; repeat.
Lady, just take down your mask, go into a filthy public restroom, run your bare hands over every surface and then touch your hands to your face and mouth and rub your eyes. Get it over with.
Celebrities like Ben Affleck won’t let a pesky pandemic stop their slow suicide, so why should she?
* * *
Department of Yep, This
* * *
Department Of My Defund The Police Story
In the ongoing Defund the Police ® debate, some folks declare that an alternative phrase for police reform is needed. It seems that too many (white) people read or hear “defund” and lose their shit react defensively. They interpret “defund” as doing away with police forces entirely, instead of the how the term is used by reform activists: as shorthand for reallocating funds from police departments to non-policing forms of public safety and community support, (e.g. social, mental health, housing and education services).
Moiself has heard this defensive reaction explained along these lines:
White people get defensive and even frightened at that notion (doing away with police) because white people associate police with security, in ways that communities of color, because of their collective history with aggressive and discriminatory policing, do not.
Sometime in the late 1970s-early 1980s, I read a feature article in a So Cal newspaper about police officer recruitment. Police chiefs were just starting to realize that for community policing to be effective the police force needed to be representative of all members of the community. Given the rising number of Vietnamese immigrants in So Cal, local police departments were trying, and mostly failing, to recruit Vietnamese-Americans. The reason for that failure was not apparent to the majority white police staff, until a cultural liaison enlightened them:
The police forces in Vietnam, and several other Asian countries, were considered to be corrupt, and the average Southeast Asian immigrant’s contact with them had been unpleasant. Thus, young Asian men [1] who might have been interested in being recruited were discouraged from doing so by their parents, who thought policing a dishonorable profession.
There’s a very basic lesson here: your experiences color your perception.
Yep, that seems evident on a Psychology 101 level. Moiself thinks it’s a bit more far-reaching than that, and ties into the Black Lives Matter movement in a variety of ways and from a variety of perspectives…including the one I am about to share here.
Little known fact about moiself: from about my 5th to 8th grade years, I hated and feared the police. I held particular fear and loathing for men I suspected were undercover cops in unmarked cars. This is because of an experience I had….
Translation: there is a story to be told.
Key elements of this story (“The Wagner Incident”) became much beloved by my family as the years past. My parents in particular loved for my older sister and I to recall the tale, and I always obliged. However, most of my family never knew that I was actually quite traumatized by what happened.
There is (unfortunately or yee-haw! depending on your enjoyment of background information) stage-setting to be done, for this Drama of Shakespearean Importance. [2]
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, my family lived in a house on Martha Lane in Santa Ana (CA). Martha Lane extended west from a major thoroughfare down to a cross-street (Pacific Ave.) which led to the local community college. [3] Across Pacific Ave., Martha Lane continued as a cul-de-sac, where my family’s house was located. [4]
The Wagners were an older couple [5] whose house was on the main part of Martha Lane (ML). The Wagners had gained a reputation – not a good one – among the other denizens of ML. Mr. Wagner, occasionally accompanied by Mrs. Wagner, walked their massive dog twice daily around the neighborhood. They made of one or two loops around the main portion of ML (they did not cross the street to the cul-de-sac), and they let their dog defecate on other people’s lawns. They made no attempt to pick it up the droppings or at least “curb” their dog; they let him go where he wanted to go. [6]
Some of the neighbors began to come out of their houses and speak to Mr. Wagner as he made his rounds. At first they politely suggested – then, as time passed and the poop accumulated, they increasingly and more frustratingly demanded – that the Wagners’ dog should do its doggie business at their own home, and not foul other people’s property. The Wagners ignored all such requests, with Mr. Wagner on a couple of such occasions responding with strongly-worded suggestions as to what the other homeowners could do with his dog’s “business.”
Petty, inconsiderate neighbor shit, so to speak, right? Nothing either novel or earth-shattering.
There were other actions the Wagners took that, looking back, seemed almost intentionally aimed at making them the scourge of the neighborhood. It was as if the Wagners got some kind of petty pleasure in taunting their neighbors, in particular, the Young People ®. I can find no other explanation for their behavior.
As a Girl Scout, moiself had the twice-a-year fundraising duties (which I loathed) of going from house to house in my neighborhood, peddling Girl Scout Cookies in the spring and Girl Scout Calenders [7] in the fall. The Wagners did not have a no soliciting sign on their porch; nevertheless, the first time I rang their doorbell on behalf of the Scouts I received a very snooty dismissal from Mrs. Wagner, when a simple, “We’re not interested” would have sufficed. The second (and last) time I approached their house as a Girl Scout (having forgotten about the first incident, since six months had passed), Mrs. Wagner apparently saw me coming, and couldn’t wait until I set foot on her porch to reject my sales pitch. Before I’d taken three steps from the sidewalk to her driveway her front door flew open and she came barreling out of her house. Her voluminous bat wings shook along with her index finger, which she waggled at me while she bellowed about how she didn’t want to buy anything.
I fled the Wagner driveway with as much dignity as I could muster. Later, I compared stories with other neighborhood kids, whom, I discovered, had experienced similar treatment when they were seeking donations for, say, a school paper drive or other charities. The next time I had to do my GS soliciting I remembered my lesson, and as I left the porch of the house *before* the Wagners’ I proceeded on to the house *after* the Wagners’. As I did so, Mrs. Wagner once again came charging out of the house into her driveway – how strange, I later thought, as she must have been sitting by her front window, just waiting for…what? For a youngster to yell at? – and proceeded to berate me. Apparently, I was a stand-in for all the neighborhood children, as she began her rant with, “YOU KIDS….” I hadn’t even made the slightest indication of stopping at her house – I was just walking past it, on the sidewalk!
At least she wasn’t armed with a garden hose.
Sharing and comparing stories – that’s what kids in a ‘hood do. As the years passed the older kids began to compile a hefty dossier of Wagner Incidents, many of them involving the holidays. A few neighbors told about “Christmas incidents,” stories I cannot now recall, [8] and every July 4 we heard about how the Wagners did their own fireworks in the street in front of their house, then loudly complained if their next door or across-the-street neighbor’s – in particular, their neighbor’s children or grandchildren – did the same…or just yelled at teens who were walking on the other side of the street, on their way to a friend’s family’s fireworks party.
October 31 seemed to bring out the worst (or weirdest) in the Wagners. On Halloween night the Wagners always turned their porch light on and hung Halloween decorations on their front door, then were randomly and mystifyingly rude to the kids who rang their doorbell. In our neighborhood the trick-or-treaters tended to go in groups of four or more children; the Wagners would often single out someone in your group, make disparaging remarks about a costume they didn’t like, then give candy to some kids and not to others. Sometimes, as if on a whim, they would answer the doorbell, refuse to give candy (from the big jar they had on display) to anyone, and shoo your entire group off their porch. [9]
Like many grade school-aged children, I found the world of adults both baffling and boring. Unless a home contained children of my or my siblings’ ages, I didn’t pay much attention as to who lived in what house on my block. It took a couple of years for it to sink in: you don’t go to the Wagner‘s house for Halloween…or anything else.
Can you guess what kind of attitude among the neighbors, in particular among the youth of Martha Lane, was engendered by the Wagners, toward the Wagners?
“I knew you could, boys and girls.”
There were many more incidents that my older sister and her friends shared with moiself and my friends. Slowly but surely, a vendetta arose. The older kids in the neighborhood had had it with the Wagners, and conspired to tease them at every opportunity. My older sister and her friend rewrote lyrics to the tune of, “We Love You Conrad,” (a song from the Broadway musical, Bye Bye Birdie):
♫ We hate you Wagners Oh yes we do We don’t hate anyone like you When you are near us, P.U.! Oh Wagners we hate you. ♫
Yeah; I know – hardly cutting-edge satire. Still, I thought my sister and her friend were so clever when sang me that song, and they were obviously proud of themselves. They taught the song to all the neighborhood kids, and made us all vow to sing it at any Wagner-sighting opportunity.
Things escalated, as they say, from there.
Early one hot summer night a bunch of us ML kids were hanging out on the corner of Pacific and ML, negotiating which chase/tag game we would play that evening (Green Monster? Hide n’ Seek?) We spotted Mrs. Wagner up the street, identifiable from even 200 feet away by her towering, glow-in-the-dark white beehive hairdo and imperious, waddling stride. She was walking her dog, and one of us in the group – I can’t remember who but it might have been me or my older sister – had the brilliant idea to begin humming the Miss America theme song:
♫ There she is…Miss America… There she is, your ideal…. ♫
Silly stuff – hardly the material of celebrity stalking lawsuits. Even so, it apparently put a burr under Mrs. Wagner’s saddle (or that ridiculous beehive). Unbeknownst to us kids, when Mrs. Wagner returned home she told her husband what we kids had done, and he called the police and insisted they open a harassment investigation.
We hummed the Miss America song – that’s what put them over the edge? We didn’t even sing the words.
Also unbeknownst – to me, at that time – were other incidences of kids taking revenge on the Wagners. Some older teens who lived on the main section of ML had, with their parents’ knowledge and approval, saved some of the “droppings” the Wagner’s dog left on their lawn. After accumulating several days’ worth, the kids delivered shovelfuls of feces to the Wagner’s lawn. When this failed to deter Mr. Wagner from his dog walking/dumping, on July Fourth one family’s teenage son played the proverbial, flaming-sack-of-poop prank on the Wagner’s front porch. [10]
That and other incidences enabled the Wagners to convince the police to open a harassment file…or a case…or whatever it was.
” ‘Martha Lane Kids v. Wagner’? – what is this bullshit, Danno”
So. This “case” was going on, without my knowledge. Then, one day….
I’ve always wanted to say that.
The story continues, in next week’s post. ( The Saga I’m Not Ending,” 9-4-2020 )
* * *
May you get to say something you’ve always wanted to say; May you be mindful of how petty neighborhood disputes can escalate; May you bear with me until next week; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] And it was only men who were being recruited, at that time.
[4] Those two portions of Martha Lane no longer exist. Under eminent domain, the community college took over the properties in the early 1980s. In archetypical, SoCal development fashion, the area where my family house once stood is now a parking lot.
[6] Do people still use that term? For the young ‘uns who may be unfamiliar with it, to curb one’s dog involved pulling it off the curb – away from someone’s lawn or sidewalk – and making it poop in the street gutter.
[7] Anyone remember those? The Girl Scouts stopped selling them in 2008.
[8] The Wagners scared off Santa’s reindeer with a shotgun? Nothing would surprise me.
[9] But they would leave the porch light on – the universal sign of “open for business” for trick-or-treaters – and answer the doorbell when the next group of kids came by. Yep, we watched, to see what happened.
[10] He filled a brown paper bag with the Wagner’s dog’s droppings, put the bag on the Wagner’s front porch, set it afire, rang their doorbell, and hauled ass up the block. And yes, when Mr. Wagner answered the doorbell he attempted to stamp out the flames….
Moiself sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.
* * *
The Future Vice President’s Campaign I’m Not Consulting On ( 8-21-20 )
Department Of Yet Another Silver Lining
The Democratic convention’s pandemic-mindful/physical distancing states’ roll call (in its entirety, here ) – how delightful was that? The usual political party convention roll call, with the delegates dressed basically the same (we can wear three colors – can you guess what they are?) and wearing those ridiculous straw boater hats, some of which look to be made of styrofoam….it’s beyond boring.
Well hellooooo, ladies.
Moiself sez let’s do it this way from now on, pandemic or not. We got a brief glimpse into the states’ – and US territories’ – terrain as well as character, [1] with a few surprises, too. Rhode Island calamari – that’s even a thing? Who knew?
* * *
Department Of Which Is The More Accurate Adjective?
What the radio podcast host said: ” (name)…is a board-licensed professional counselor.”
What moiself heard; “(name) …is a bored, licensed professional counselor.”
* * *
Department Of If Given My Druthers, I’d Like To Leave The Civics Lesson To Someone Else
What, BTW, are druthers? In the various idiomatic expressions which use the word, it does seem to be a positive thing. Do I have to wait to be given them, by someone else, or can I get or earn them on my own? [2]
If it were in my power, I would give all of you your druthers. Wouldn’t it be great if druthers turned out to be something like this:
Once again, I digress.
Moiself is thrilled with Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate. During the Democratic debates, a California friend (MM) and I were exchanging ideas/compliments about the various candidates. In MM’s opinion Sen. Harris, besides being experienced and intelligent and a razor-sharp questioner during Senate hearings, was also not the kind to put up with crap or betrayal – “She’ll put a shiv in you,” MM wrote admiringly. We both agreed that was a talent sorely needed when dealing with the petty viciousness and mendacity of the Republican congress. [3]
One of the many, many other things I like about Senator and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Kamala Harris is that I don’t know a thing about her religious/spiritual and/or worldview beliefs. And I’d like to keep it that way.
Except of course, the Republicans will not stand for that. Even the (secretly) religion-free among them must grovel to the altar of right-wing Jayyy-suuuus lovers. #45 figured this out when he was laughing all the way to the bank (or golf course), passing church after church along the way, metaphorically thumbing his nose at them even as he was snickering about how easy it was to bamboozle the congregants.
The Republicans will look for every opportunity, during the election and debates, [4] to play their piety cards and jab Biden and Harris about their beliefs. Biden has already fallen into that trap –of talking about his own faith rather than telling those who ask that it’s none of their business as the USA is not a theocracy, and let’s get back to the issues….
Thus, I humbly offer my advice to Ms. Harris – the advice she didn’t solicit from me [5] but which I hope she takes:
Don’t fall for Pence’s religious rhetoric claptrap, and make him sorry if he even asks. I know you’re capable of going all prosecutorial on his ass…even though that tactic, if you employed it, would make your advisors reach for the smelling salts as the white evangelicals would clutch their pearls and gasp in horror at The Angry Black Bitch Atheist (whether you are or are not the fourth, you’d definitely be pegged as the first three). So, yes, I understand how you must go for discretion.
I also hope you don’t mumble platitudes about respecting everyone’s faith journey (although I understand there will be pressure to do so). When – not *if,* as religion will definitely be an issue – the subject of a paticular candidate’s religious beliefs are brought up, don’t ignore it. Instead, candidly and assertively steer away from the subject, every time it happens, and every time reminding us of why you are doing so:
We are electing presidents and vice presidents here, not popes and pastors and vicars and decans – or rabbis, imams or mullahs, Zen masters or Lamas, pujaris or gurus….
I know, this is important…I’ll ty to stay alert.
American citizens hold a diversity of religious opinions. The candidates elected will be the President and Vice President for all the people, including the growing percentage of atheists, agnostics, humanists, Freethinkers Brights – aka, to pollsters and scientists, as the “Nones,” as in, we Americans who are religion-free and/or claim no religious affiliation.
Polls and studies reveal that 23 to 26 % of the US population – approaching one out of every four people – claim “none” for their religion, despite facing open hostility and discrimination from religious believers (and incurring a political liability as well, if they run for office). And scientists note that these 23-26% figures are conservative estimates.
“…psychologists…contend that there may be far more atheists than pollsters report because “social pressures favoring religiosity, coupled with stigma against religious disbelief…, might cause people who privately disbelieve in (god[s]) to nonetheless self-present as believers, even in anonymous questionnaires. To work around this problem of self-reported data, the psychologists employed what is called an unmatched count technique, which has been previously validated for estimating the size of other underreported cohorts…. (Using a) Bayesian probability estimation to compare their results with similar Gallup and Pew polls of 2,000 American adults each…they estimated, with 93 percent certainty, that somewhere between 17 and 35 percent of Americans are atheists, with a “most credible indirect estimate” of 26 percent. (“The number of Americans with no religious affiliation is rising,” Scientific American, 4-1-18 )
As a former prosecutor you, Senator Harris, are aware of the average person’s cognitive capacities, so I’ll trust you to condense those statistics into something debate-attention-span appropriate.
After doing so, please give a brief reminder – more like a civics lesson, considering how many Americans know next to nothing about the history of our country’s secular roots – that the USA was the first country to have a totally god-free constitution. “God” – anyone’s god – is not mentioned in the US Constitution (nor is Jesus, nor Christianity), not even once. Religion is only mentioned twice, and then in exclusionary terms: in the First Amendment (“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”), and in Article VI, which declares that “…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
And do this – remind folks of the facts – Every. Time.
There will be some ignoramuses (most likely your debate opponent), even among otherwise seemingly articulate members of the press, who will confuse the Declaration of Independence with the Constitution, and will quote the former:
“But wait, what about the part where it says, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights’….”
Here is, yet again, another opportunity for education. Remind the populace of the difference between the two: The Declaration of Independence (an ‘apology’ and call to arms for the American revolution); and the Constitution of the United States (the new nation’s governing document).
You may also want to be prepared for when some idiot sputters about how his dollar bills say, “In God We Trust”…which he probably doesn’t know was not added to our currency until 1957, during the Commie/Red Scare era, and then he may continue on as how the Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase, “Under God”…except that until relatively recently, it didn’t:
The Pledge of Allegiance was written in August 1892 by the socialist minister Francis Bellamy… (who) had hoped that the pledge would be used by citizens in any country. In its original form it read: “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” In 1923, the words, “the Flag of the United States of America” were added: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” In 1954, in response to the Communist threat of the times, President Eisenhower encouraged Congress to add the words “under God,” creating the 31-word pledge we say today. Bellamy’s daughter objected to this alteration. (“The Pledge of Allegiance,” Historic Documents, usdocuments.org)
You will likely also encounter shade from the historical yahoos who will crow about how the USA was formed as a “Christian nation.” Not only does Constitution make no such claims, we have the confirmation to the opposite, declared and signed by the very founding fathers of our country and the framers of the constitution, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoly – which was sent to the Senate (by President John Adams). The entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor (including the (in)famous words in Article 11; copies were printed for every Senator; the treaty was ratified by a unanimous vote of all 23 Senators. They knew what they were doing:
Treaty of Tripoli, article 11 “As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.” [6]
All this history should be enough. Of course, it won’t be.
So, please, get the message across…in your own astute, succinct way. Perhaps, a more prime time-palatable version of the following?
* * *
Department Of Fun With Nature’s Wacky Reproductive Scenarios
“Some sharks give live birth from two uteruses — and that’s not the weirdest part.”
Dateline: earlier this week, listening to a Curiosity Daily podcast. CD is one of my favorite podcasts. As per their website:
The award-winning Curiosity Daily podcast will help you get smarter about the world around you — every day. In less than 10 minutes, you’ll get a unique mix of research-based life hacks, the latest science and technology news, and more.
I’m not sure how much smarter CD has helped moiself to get, but I’m certainly entertained, and armed with interesting trivia facts, by each episode.
A recent segment on sharks which have dual uteri caught my eye (ear?). The takeaway: many shark species have multiple uteri and give birth to live baby sharks, which hatch from eggs in the uteri. Before being expelled, the baby sharks which hatch first swim between the uteri, and eat the eggs of their un-hatched siblings, so they can grow faster. In one species, multiple free-swimming baby sharks hatch at the same time and fight to the death inside their shark mom’s uterus.
“Congrats, Mom, it’s a boy…I mean, a girl…uh, make that, a cannibal.”
For some petty reason, I enjoy the idea of anti-choicers – most of whom hold a conservative religious dogma which says that their god creates and directs all life (so guess who’s responsible for this preborn carnage?) – cringing at these facts…even though sibling predation – “siblicide” – is not unknown in other animals (e.g. the newly hatched chicks of some bird species will attack and eat their smaller siblings, or push them or any unhatched eggs out of the nest).
As with every CD episode, at the end of this one the two hosts recapped what they’d learned. The male host, whose wife is pregnant, said that he’s been feeling his wife’s belly when the fetus kicks her, and now he’s thinking how “…that is really mild, compared to what sharks do.” He then declared, “I’m glad I didn’t marry a shark.”
“Oh, honey, can you feel them fighting to the death?”
* * *
Pun For The Day
Presidential candidate Scissors was forced to withdraw from the race after failing to find anyone who would run with him.
“Do you see what humor they have to put up with, in a so-called ‘free’ society?”
* * *
May you support politicians in remembering and upholding our country’s secular foundation/roots; May you have yet another reason to detest that insipid “Baby Sharks” song; May someone surprise you with the gift of druthers; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] But California should have had a surfer boy standing between those two women.
[2] I could Google this, I know, but sometimes, it’s just more fun to wonder.
[3] Then added that, as much as he admired President Obama, “that was a talent Obama lacked.” (moiself ageed).
[5] Or, maybe she *did* and her email got caught in the spam folder.
[6] At the time of the Treat, Mediterranean Sea traffic was largely controlled by pirates from the North African Muslim states of the Barbary Coast. Many European seafaring countries paid a tribute to the Barbary Sultans in exchange for safe passage through the Mediterranean. After the American Revolution, the US was no longer covered by British tribute treaties. The U.S. decided to form tribute treaties with the Barbary States, and given the history of The Crusades, assure the sultans that the US was not going to use the excuse of Christianity vs. Islam to go to war with them.
Moiself sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.
Department Of Things That Will – Or Should – Blow Your Mind
Did you know that the post-slavery, Jim Crow Law society of the USA served as a model for the Nazis’ system of establishing “racial/Aryan purity”?
“It turned out that German eugenicists were in continuing dialogue with American eugenicists. Books by American eugenicists were big sellers in Germany in the years leading up to the Third Reich….of course, the Nazis needed no one to teach them how to hate. But what they did was they sent researchers to study America’s Jim Crow laws. They actually sent researchers to America to study how Americans had subjugated African Americans, what would be considered the subordinated caste. And they actually debated and consulted American law as they were devising the Nuremberg Laws. “[1] ( “It’s More Than Racism: Isabel Wilkerson Explains America’s ‘Caste’ System,” Fresh Air, 8-4-20 )
“Captain, you’re shitting me, – I mean, fascinating….”
In her recent Fresh Air interview with host Terry Gross, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson spoke about discovering, while researching her latest book, that Nazi Germany modeled their system of codified racism in part on (what Wilkerson calls) America’s racial caste system. Wilkerson suggests that we look at America as having created a caste system (as opposed to using the overused and often misapplied blanket term of “racism”) to keep down African Americans.
GROSS: In the comparisons that you make between the Nazi regime and the caste system in America, you describe…what qualified in each country as being white…. Would you compare the two countries in defining that?
WILKERSON: Well, that was a source of tremendous debate, I came to discover. I had no idea how they (the Nazis) had arrived at their delineation of people. And they sent people to study the United States and how it had defined and codified, categorized and subjugated African Americans and delineated who could be what in the United States. They also studied the marriage laws – intermarriage laws. And in doing so, they debated as to who should qualify to be considered Aryan in Germany at that time. And in studying the United States, they were stunned to have discovered the one-drop rule that was the common distinction in the United States for determining whether a person could be identified as Black…. That idea of the one-drop rule – that was viewed as too extreme to them.
GROSS (incredulously): Too extreme to the Nazis?
WILKERSON: Stunning to hear that…stunning to see that, stunning to discover that. The Nazis, in trying to create their own caste system…went to great lengths to really think hard about who should qualify as Aryan because they felt that they wanted to include as many people as they possibly could, ironically enough. In trying to define who could qualify to be Aryan, the Nazis were more concerned about making sure that those who had Aryan blood would be protected…. They actually had greater latitude in defining who could be Aryan and who would qualify as Jewish than the United States had determined with who could be African American or who could be white.
Too extreme to the Nazis?
Terry Gross’s reaction keeps coming back to oiself.
Once again, historical scholars and journalists are doing fascinating research, bringing to the forefront information and historical documentation, via sources and materials readily available, that we Americans are just not taught in school – or anywhere else.
Another intriguing quote from the interview is from when Gross and Wilkerson were discussing the fact that “the idea of being white is an American innovation.”
GROSS: “You were talking to a Nigerian-born playwright, and that playwright told you there are no Black people in Africa…. Africans aren’t Black. What did they mean?“
To find out what that playwright meant, and how Wilkerson came to believe that “caste” is a more accurate description of Black people’s experience in the USA than racism, listen to the interview (or get the transcript here).
* * *
Department Of How’s This For A Life Strategy?
* Live your life so that you never have a reason to request
even one non-disclosure agreement, from anyone, ever. *
“For decades, (He Who Shall Not Be Named In This Space ) has relied on broadly worded nondisclosure agreements as a powerful weapon against anyone who would say something critical of him. Among those who have signed agreements are a porn star, two ex-wives, contestants on ‘The Apprentice,’ campaign workers and business associates…. Now, in one of the most sweeping efforts by a former associate to undo nondisclosure agreements, the _____ campaign’s former Hispanic outreach director last week filed her latest effort in a class-action suit to void all such campaign contracts. She says they are so broad that they deny individuals their First Amendment right to say anything critical of the president — even as he routinely takes to Twitter to mock and deride his critics.” ( The Washington Post, 8-7-20, “t**** long has relied on nondisclosure deals to prevent criticism.
That strategy may be unraveling.” )
* * *
Department Of Nostalgia Sub Department Of Yet Another Reason To Fear For The Youth Of Today
What with virtual schooling perhaps being the norm at least for a while, combined with the gradual replacement of chalkboards with whiteboards in schools, will an entire generation of children grow up unable to appreciate the metaphor of describing a hideous experience as “…like fingernails on a chalkboard?”
* * *
Department Of It Can’t Be Scarier Than Letting Them Drive
Y’all heard of the campaign to extend voting rights to 16- and 17-year-olds?
Calm down, Grandpa, and think about it.
The goal of vote16usa.org is “…to support efforts to lower the voting age on the local level, help start new local campaigns, and elevate the issue’s prominence on a national level.”
This is something moiself supports. I hope that you will as well, after researching and considering the issues – like these ones:
Your child must file a return in any of the following situations for tax year 2019: Unearned income was more than $1,100. Earned income was more than $12,200. ( from Kids and Taxes, figures for 2019 filing year )
The 16-year-old with an after-school job and a paper route will have to pay income taxes, just as a part- or full-time employed 18-year-old must, if their incomes exceeds a certain amount. But unlike the 18-year-old, the 16-year-old cannot vote for her political representative to decide tax policy.
Most of us are familiar the statistics behind auto driving:
* Over 37,000 Americans die in automobile crashes per year. * An additional 3 million are injured or disabled annually.
Driving is quite the responsibility. Yet, a 16-year-old can get a driver’s license and also, at the DMV, can sign a legally binding consent to be on an organ donor registry. But he himself cannot vote on how those life-altering policies (the licensing of drivers and organ donation) are implemented, nor can he elect representatives to do so for him.
No taxation without representation. Remember that rallying cry? [2] Our political forebears fought an effin’ revolution over issues like that. It seems only fair that, if you can work a job and pay taxes, you should be able to vote.
Because of our culture’s fucked-up misunderstanding of the 2nd amendment lively debate on issues surrounding firearms, 16- and 17-year-olds have the “right” to attend high schools where they must participate in active shooter drills, but they cannot vote in or out the adults who set national and state firearms policies (they are old enough to be murdered, but not to vote).
Do you remember how, after the Parkland High School shooting, many of the school’s students organized marches, and addressed their adult political representatives:
“Every kid in this country now goes to school wondering if this day might be their last. We live in fear. It doesn’t have to be this way. Change is coming. And it starts now, inspired by and led by the kids who are our hope for the future. Their young voices will be heard.“ ( Parkland students say, ‘We are going to be the last mass shooting’, Daily Journal Online )
Do you also remember how many adults, from news pundits to politicians, dissed the students for doing so? Do you think politicians could so easily ignore those young voices if those same voices had the power to organize and vote them out of office?
One of the more common arguments older people give against lowering the voting age is their claim that 16- and 17-year-olds aren’t rational or informed enough to be involved in political decision making.
Seriously? What qualifies as “rational” or “informed-*enough,* given our populace? Do you know how many Americans over age 18 watch reality TV shows? At the height of its popularity, Here Comes Honey Boo-boo, arguably the worst reality show ever, drew 2.9 million viewers (the show ran for two years, and was only cancelled when it was revealed that the mother of the show was dating a registered child sex offender).
Many 16- and 17-year-olds are more sensible and better informed on politics and social issues than adults thrice their age. When I was in high school I ruefully noticed that so many of my peers – in particular, those of us in the journalism group, where being interested in and informed about currents events was both an attraction and a requirement – knew much more about politics and current events than most of our adult family members and even some of our teachers – a frustrating fact which was evidenced when we tried to initiate discussions of said events and the adults openly copped to being unfamiliar with the issues.
From my junior high – high school years, I can recall many a baffling dialogue with my parents, in which I tried to engage them on political issues – not just to express moiself’s own thoughts; I genuinely wanted to hear their opinions. I was almost always unable to satisfactorily do so, because they knew few (and sometimes no) specifics of the issues I wanted to discuss, from a local school board election to international criticism of USA policy on Vietnam. And in some (read: too many) cases, they frankly admitted they just didn’t know and didn’t care… And yet, there were no “rational and informed” poll tests nor requirements they had to pass: by virtue of their age alone, they were able to register to vote and then go to the polls and cast their ballots on issues about which they knew or cared nothing, and/or elect other citizens who would make those decisions for them.
I used to advise religions that forbade female clergy, “Either ordain women or stop baptizing them.”[3] (For some reason, the various RC popes never took moiself’s advice on that…or any other matter.). Fair is fair. If you’re old enough to pay taxes you’re old enough to vote for those people who make those tax policies. [4]
* * *
Department Of Thoughts That Wake Me Up At 3 AM
2020: it is the present year, and also the term for normal visual acuity. When we say that someone “…has 2020 vision,” we are complementing that person’s accuracy of perception.
I began the year with optimism: maybe 2020 is the year when the collective WE ® will realize that international problems require international solutions. How appropriate, moiself dared to dream, if 2020 turned out to be the year when WE began to get our proverbial shit together!?
Now I despair that 2020 will be the year when we ultimately lost our sight.
The viral pandemic and the resulting medical economic and political upheaval have put other pressing issues on the back burner. Speaking of burning, the most crucial of those issues is that we are burning the planet up – we are setting our own house on fire. Aside from our nation’s own pathetic excuse of non-leadership on this issue, I don’t see any other international leader with the standing and influence (or, seemingly, the desire) to take point on this issue.
This is why leadership is so important — why leadership is a thing in the first place. Because there are 7.7 fucking BILLION of us, and moiself and my friends trying to “do our part” by never buying another plastic bag ( “refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle, and other ways to reduce your carbon footprint” ) may help save a sea turtle or two but it’s not gonna hack it in the long run.
It’s just too damn depressing. I need a baby sloth moment.
“Oh sure, you wanna talk about burning up? I live in a tropical jungle and y’all put me in flannel pajamas?”
* * *
Department Of My Phone Knows Me Too Well
Here is how my smart(ass) phone, at 3 am, translated my dictation of, “Department Of Thoughts That Wake Me Up At 3 AM”:
“Department of farts that wake me up at 3 AM.”
* * *
Department Of You Can Pee In The Yard, But Don’t You Dare Enjoy It
Our across-the-street beach neighbor, JK and his wife CK, [5] live next to a house which is almost always rented out. This (edited) email from JK was in response to my giving him a “heads up” that my son K and his friends would be staying at our place last weekend:
You might have noticed the group of 11 staying at the rent house next door (rated for 8 occupancy)… black SUV and black pickup truck… the SUV arrived before the pickup truck guy (who had the key) arrived to open the house. The three (SUV) women tried the front door, to no avail, went around back, which started our dogs barking. I went out to the deck to see why the dogs were barking so viciously and got there just in time to see a woman hook her thumb into the back waistband of her yoga pants, pull them down and squat in the backyard between the fern and the picnic table. After a few seconds, presumably emptying her bladder, she stood up and pulled her yoga pants back up. It was obvious that she neglected to put her panties on that morning… yes, commando yoga pants. The three women got back in the SUV and headed south.
Upon hearing this story, CK reported the event to the rental agency and the Manzanita Police. The black pickup truck arrived about 15 m after the SUV left; the guy couldn’t figure out how to work the house key, and made the dogs bark again. He got on his phone and shortly drove off in the same direction as the SUV. When officer M arrived, he and I had a nice discussion about these events, and he agreed with my suspicion that the gals were just early, had to go NOW, and then decided to go to the beach. He also informed me that, according to Oregon law, peeing in the yard is not illegal but trespassing is. If the woman was part of the group renting the house, she’s entitled to do so (pee in the yard). As long as she’s not touching herself for pleasure.
My response to JK: Thank you – this is hilarious. As long as it’s not happening next door to us. 😉 Hey, good to know that, in Oregon, I can drop trou to pee, but not “pleasure” myself. Does this law also extend to men?
JK: Yes the law applies equally to both/all genders. If you are on property that you do not own, you must have permission to be on the property. The Oregon code states that a person has “… a reasonable expectation of privacy …” in a number of places including “… residences, yards of residences, …” and it makes no distinction between front or back yards. Exceptions are included for touching one’s privates for pleasure and “… causing arousal in others …”
You are correct to notice that this picture in no way relates to the above story…
but do you really want a picture of a woman peeing in someone else’s yard? [6]
* * *
May you never sign nor request others sign a non-disclosure agreement; May we all continue to learn the parts of our national history
which make us uncomfortable; May you always have other options than having to pee in the yard; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1]The Nuremberg Laws were antisemitic and racist laws in Nazi Germany…. The two laws were the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honour, which forbade marriages and extramarital intercourse between Jews and Germans and the employment of German females under 45 in Jewish households, and the Reich Citizenship Law, which declared that only those of German or related blood were eligible to be Reich citizens. The remainder were classed as state subjects without any citizenship rights.
[2] And by remember I mean, from your American history class…not that you heard it personally. I mean, moiself knows my readers tend to skew older, but not *that* old.
[3] Or stop cashing their checks. Now I just want women to stop writing those checks. Imagine what would happen to religious organizations if women stopped giving them time and money? I sometimes do, and I sleep better at night when I do.
[4] If you can’t, then you shouldn’t have to pay income taxes until you’re 18.
[5] Who gave me permission to share this story, in case you were wondering.
[6] And if your answer to that question is “Yes!” then please stop following moiself’s blog.
Moiself sincerely hopes that y’all will have a modicum of amusement with these blog reruns from Fridays of August past, while I, along with MH and our offspring K and Belle, are enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime bit of family fun.
Department Of Even Yoga Teachers Need To Be Careful What They Ask For
Backstory: A couple of months ago, when we were all new to this streaming business, my 9 am yoga class teacher held a pre-class video chat for us streamers. She told us a “yoga joke,” then said that if anyone else knew any yoga jokes, she’d love to hear them.
Dateline: Monday; circa 9:30 am; doing a vinyasa (yoga) class via streaming. The regular teacher is on vacation. As the substitute yoga teacher leads the class into Triangle Pose, my mind wanders – which *not* the point of a yoga class, I realize…
…my mind wanders to ponder the many different yoga pose names, both their English “nickname” and the Sanskrit names and translations, and as I do this, a joke begins to develop in moiself ‘sun-mindfulness-practicing mind. There are a few twisting yoga poses which are notorious for producing, in certain people, a certain bodily response – in fact, the Sanskrit name for one such pose translates as:
My joke is a play on the Sanskrit name for Triangle Pose, which is Trikonasa (TREE- kone-ah-sauna). I will ask my yoga teacher if there is a yoga pose known for inducing bladder leakage, and if so, would that pose be called, Trickle-asana?
My guess is that Trickleasana would look something like this.
* * *
Department Of Extending The Metaphor
Yeah, hipster, since you obviously don’t care about trashing your own lungs, go right ahead and give no thought to trashing your small portion of the planet, which happens to be shared by everyone else. That’s the true American Spirit. [2]
* * *
* * *
Actually, not. Not something *completely* different, that is.
Instead, a smooth segue into….
Department Of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes… And Nowhere Else, If You’re Lucky
MH and I have two fireplaces in our house. One has never been used; the other has been used once, not long after we moved in (~ 26 years ago), and never since. This is because of moiself’s killjoy spirit high livability standards.
I have been the family spoilsport when it comes to wood fires, be they fireplace fires or beach bonfires or campfires. When on vacation, burning wood is “permissible” only if necessary – e.g., if your accommodations have a wood-fire stove as the only heating source. You see, I am one of those annoying, I-can’t-pretend-to-not-know-something-once-I-know-it kinda people, and cannot justify sitting around a pollution source sans a more compelling reason than my personal entertainment.
And yes, I have fun, sitting-around-the-campfire memories from childhood. And yes, I have been pooh-poohed for my anti-wood fire attitude ( “Oh, c’mon, it’s not really that bad…” ). And yes, I am thanking someone else for doing the legwork on the It Really Is That Bad ® statistics I once knew but have forgotten and was too lazy to look up.
That info via Someone Else ® was provided in yesterday’s Ask Amy column, wherein Amy dealt with a woman’s am-I-right-to-be-disturbed-by-this question. This (nonsmoking) woman has been accused by her (non-smoking) husband’s “big smoker” sisters of over-reacting because of the woman’s concerns about the fact that when she and hubby go for “chats and s’mores” to the sisters’ place, the sisters toss their butts and partially smoked cigarettes into the fire pit:
“…since we don’t smell any cigarette smoke as the fire burns, (the sisters claim that) second-hand smoke isn’t an issue. I feel this is second-hand smoke and a very real health concern.”
Amy lays it on the line (my emphases):
“Cigarettes aside, the backyard fire pit itself presents risks to lung health. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov), ‘In addition to particle pollution, wood smoke contains several toxic harmful air pollutants, including: benzene, formaldehyde, acrolein, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).’ Cigarette filters are made of cellulose acetate, which is a finely spun plastic (not cotton, as I had always assumed). Burning plastic sends off toxic fumes. The leftover tobacco on the spent cigarettes will also release ‘second-hand’ smoke.
So yes – this bonfire is basically a flaming pit of toxins.”
“The Scoutmaster says we’re only two requirements shy of earning our Flaming Pit of Toxins merit badges!”
Are you lost in the forest in the dead of winter? Ok; build a fire. You and your friends just wanna sit beside a pile of wood and watch it burn for…oh, that warm, glowy-feeling, or whatever? There are other ways to enjoy each other’s company that don’t involve needless production of toxic waste. How about playing charades, or that game where you find clever ways to trash your hypocritical friends who make you feel guilty about, say, things like polluting for your own pleasure?
Or how about this: re-purpose some old holiday lights, and if you put them on twinkly-mode you can pretend it’s flickering flames. Imagination is good for the body and spirit.
* * *
Department Of Could The Editor Have Cut The Movie To Give You All At Least Five Minutes Before Contradicting Yourselves?
Dateline: a week ago, this evening; watching The Go-Go’s documentary with MH. One of the Go-Gos was doing a voice over about the early 1980s Los Angeles punk scene (from whence the Go-Gos was spawned); specifically, about how accepting the punks were: it didn’t matter if you were gay or straight, white or black, male or female etc. you were welcomed for however you were/whatever you were.
This kumbaya declaration was made literally seconds before the band went on to recall how the other Go-Gos demanded that their new drummer, Gina Schock, an import to LA from Baltimore, undergo a makeover when she arrived – they cut and dyed her frizzy blonde hair to short and dark, to be more suitable to the punk scene.
Confession: the picture of Gina’s “Baltimore” hairstyle that flashed onscreen during that recollection…it *was* really, clownishy, wretched, even by 1980’s hair standards. [3] Open and accepting only goes so far; I guess even punk rockers have standards.
Yep; it was worse than this.
* * *
Department Of Stopping Moiself In The Nick Of Time
Dateline: Tuesday, circa 7 am, walking north along the beach at Manzanita. There are few people on the misty beach. About 200 yards ahead of me I see three creatures walking south – a man, a woman, and their dog. The man and the woman each hold a large takeout coffee cup in their respective right hands. The dog, walking between the two, is looking up at the man. Dog pays the woman no attention; dog’s eyes stare up at the man.
As the trio gets closer I notice that the dog’s laser focus is on the man’s left arm, which the man has tightly clenched to his left side, and I get a glimpse of the halves of two brightly colored orbs the man is carrying between his upper arm and armpit/chest.
As our two groups (well, moiself is a group of one) we both do the polite, COVID-appropriate thing, moving to the side and smiling in acknowledgement and greeting. The woman says a few words to the dog, which gives no indication it has heard her – it never tears its gaze from the man and the toys he has “hidden” under his arm…and the woman sees that I have noticed this. As she gives me a What-am-chopped-liver? look and shrug of her shoulders, I stop myself at the last minute from pointing to the dog and to the man and saying to the man, “Oh, I get it – you’re the one with the balls!”
“In a just world, I’m the one with *all* the balls.”
* * *
Pun For The Day
I can’t believe I got fired from the calendar factory – all I did was take a day off!
* * *
May you enjoy the simple pleasure of wasting precious brain wattage on composing a bad joke about your favorite form of exercise; May you be the coveted one with the…uh…balls; May we all hope that the nostalgia for pre-pandemic times does not presage a return to 1980s hair; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] No no no – not *that* kind. A yogi is anyone who practices yoga.
[2] Can you make out the cigarette carton brand? Do ya get it, huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
[3] I can provide no still picture of that hair, from the documentary – I think it would have burned the camera lens to even attempt it.
“There’s a wonderful Japanese term, for which there isn’t a precise English translation. The term is Mono No Aware ( mo no no a- war -ey ) loosely means, a sensitivity to ephemera; the bittersweet feeling of seeing things change. Mono no awareis a wistful awareness of the transitory nature of existence. Since everything we see all around us will one day be gone, we must appreciate every millisecond. According to this idea, cherry blossoms are not only beautiful despite only blossoming for two weeks once a year, they are beautiful *because* they only blossom for two weeks once a year.
When you notice yourself fearing or resisting change, perhaps you can remember the concept of mono no aware, and find harmony with the impermanent nature of all things. As Jack Kornfield [1] said, ‘Like a sandcastle, all is temporary. Build it; tend it; enjoy it. And when the time comes, let it go.’ ” ( from Daily Calm morning meditation, 7-22-26 )
* * *
Department Of Apropos Of Nothing…
…or at least the nothing that now seems so important, or at least, memorable. Recently, both a book I was reading and a podcast I was listening to, on the subject of the history of the radical undergrounds [2] in the 1970s-1980s, mentioned an incident in Chicago where the boxer Muhammed Ali ( “the most recognizable man in the world” ) joined in on an action to disrupt the eviction of a poor Black family living in a Chicago tenement. I didn’t know about that incident; while I admired his acting on behalf of that family, hearing about it got me to thinking of the impressions I carried of Ali, and still do, to this day.
My parents were not very interested in boxing. Moiself actively opposed and was confused by its very existence: why were select men given money and medals for doing something that, if they did it in the streets instead of in a sporting arena, they’d be arrested ? [3] I refused to watch any boxing matches as a matter of principle, but when it came to the Ali-Frazier competitions I – like the entire country, it seemed – was well aware of the pre-matches hype and the post-matches analysis.
When it came to that classic rivalry – the three Frazier-Ali matches known as The Fight of The Century (1971) and the rematches Super Fight II (1974) and the Thrilla in Manila – my parents, like most Whites of that era (so it was assumed), supported Joe Frazier. Joe Frazier was shy, respectful, softspoken, and humble; those traits of his were ridiculed by Ali and his supporters as being more palatable to White people whom, they sneered, saw Frazier as a Good Negro®.
I admired Ali for how he stood up for himself and was willing to go to jail for his principles. I’d never heard of a Black man talking back to White people like Ali did. It wasn’t so much that Ali talked back, it was that he unapologetically stood up for himself. I lovedthat. And I hate hate hated the way Ali talked about, and to, Joe Frazier.
Joe Frazier supported Ali ( both publicly and financially ) after Ali refused induction into the US Army and was subsequently stripped of his title, banned from boxing, and threatened with jail. Frazier even lobbied the boxing powers that were ( and President Nixon! ) for Ali’s being able to return to the sport. Here is what Frazier got in return: Ali boasted about how “pretty” he himself was, and contrasted his own handsome visage [4] with the features of Frazier, called Frazier “ignorant” and “dumb” and “ugly,” and actually compared Frazier to a gorilla.
Those astoundingly racist epithets would’ve been called out as being just that if they had been uttered by a White person instead of being brashly spewed by the self-proclaimed [5] “Greatest.” You could try to excuse Ali’s taunting by saying it was part of the boxing culture’s pre-match hype; but Frazier didn’t, and never forgave Ali for the taunting and bullying he (and his family) endured from Ali supporters.
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) was the celebrated agnostic orator of the 19th century, sparking what became known as The Golden Age Of Freethought. A Civil War officer, abolitionist, civil rights and women’s rights advocate, author, and skilled orater, Ingersoll’s lectures attracted thousands, and he was the person most responsible for the flowering of Freethought in the USA.
Although I knew *of* Ingersoll I did not encounter Ingersoll’s vow until after my own coming out as religion-free. Moiself got goosebumps, the first time I read this essay of his, to think of how the experiences of a someone of over 100 years ago so paralleled those of my own. It’s as if he was emptying my thoughts onto his pages.
The *news,* was not what Ingersoll realized he was convinced of ( e.g., the natural, not supernatural, origins of our world; the fact that religions are mythologies ) but rather of his ability – his*need,* his obligation, even – to express this openly.
When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths – there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world, not even in infinite space. I was free –
* free to think, to express my thoughts; * free to live to my own ideal; * free to live for myself and those I loved; * free to use all my faculties, all my senses; * free to spread imagination’s wings; * free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope; * free to judge and determine for myself; * free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books
that savages have produced,
and all the barbarous legends of the past; * free from popes and priests; * free from all the “called” and ‘set apart;’ * free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies; * free from the fear of eternal pain; * free from the winged monsters of the night; * free from devils, ghosts, and gods; for the first time, I was free.
There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.
And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain – for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell in the fierce fields of war, to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.”
* * *
May you remember, or soon discover, the first time you realized that you are free; May you know the wistful joy of appreciating ephemera; May you feel free to spread imagination’s wings; …and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] Jack Kornfield is a Jewish-American writer and teacher of the Vipassana style of Theravada Buddhism. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, Burma and India, and has been teaching mindfulness meditation since 1974.
[2] The Weather Underground, The Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army.
[4] Which, as more than one White and Black pundit pointed out, was the result of having some European ancestry in his lineage – specifically, an Irish ancestor from County Clare.
[5] “To be a great champion you must believe you are the best. If you’re not, pretend you are.” “I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.” Muhammed Ali In His Own Words.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
MH and I have been re-watching the TV series ER. Aside from some older technology artifacts – the hospital records and procedures are not fully computer-integrated (e.g., the staff keeps index card files on certain patients! ) – the issues, both medical and personal, remain, IMO, compelling and contemporary. Except for wanting an old-fashioned schoolmarm’s stick to whack George Clooney’s character on the back ( “Stand up straight! Look people in the eye! You’re a doctor, FFS!” ), the performances are spot-on. Although (for moiself at least) Clooney’s hangdog/horndog, mannered performance as Dr. Doug Ross takes some getting used to, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how… fresh… everything seems. It’s fun to rewatch a great episode I haven’t thought of in years, and turn to MH and say, “Oh, wait, I think I remember this…no I don’t/no, wait – something weird is gonna happen here….”
Someone who’s on the cusp of being a ginormous movie star and making an obscene amount of money should have better posture.
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Department Of Why Isn’t This A Thing Yet?
Percussive energyis the thing that isn’t, yet. And it should be. After all, moiself blogged about it four years ago ( The Clean Energy Source I’m Not Yet Inventing ). And yet the eyes and ears of the scientific community remain blind and deaf to my far-fetched ranting well-thought proposals?
I wrote aboutpercussive energy as the counterpart, or rather compliment, to solar and wind energy. Short recap: utilizing all that tap, tap tap [1] of raindrops – as in, designing a surface, which could capture that energy find a way to use or store it (an answer to the old school people who decry “clean” energy by saying, “Yeah well solar only works when it’s sunny/wind power only works when it’s windy….” ).
The world is still waiting for, still needing, youth science fairs and contests to challenge and/or incentivize their entrants to…basically…save us from ourselves. Or at least help us out with our existing problems, rather than translate their budding scientific and entrepreneurial skills into designing yet another mind-numbing gaming/entertainment app.
Lilly Downs, eighth grader from Osteen, Florida, wins Lemelson Early Inventor Prize winner at her 2025 science fair. [2]
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Department Of Gems Discovered While Seeking Something Else
That would be a blog segment from five years ago, specifically 8-20-21 ( The Butt I’m Not Kicking ) where in moiself wrote about MH’s colonoscopy:
Department Of Post-Procedural Updates
Background info: MH has never been able to roll his rs, which is the main reason, he told me many years ago, that he took German as a foreign language in high school. He’d thought Spanish would be more useful/practical, but he simply could not roll his rs as is required for the correct pronunciation of many Spanish words, and he was somewhat intimidated/embarrassed by his lack of being able to perform that particular linguistic feat. And it’s true: over the years, I’ve tried to get him to do it (or trick him into it), and he simple cannot roll his rs.
Dateline: Thursday, 10:50 am. MH is back home after his colonoscopy. He thinks he’s fine, but it’s obvious to moiself that the effects of the Versed (the sedative used during the procedure) are still reigning. [3] He’s… goofy
He stands at the kitchen counter, looking at the color printout he was given at the hospital, which includes a map of the lower intestines. He begins reading off the “map sites” to me:
MH (in a voice much higher than his usual range): “The ilium! The cecum! The rrrrrrrrrrrectum…”
Moiself: What?!?!?! Holy crap; did you hear yourself?! You rolled your rs!
MH (in miffed toddler mode): “No I didn’t.”
Moiself: “Oh yes you did!”
MH proceeds to say “rectum” over and over, drawing out the rsound without rolling it. But for one glorious, Versed-induced moment, them rs were rolling like a river.
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Department Of Not Completely Different But Similar, As In, Involving A Memory
MH and I met in a Lutheran Church. Yep; yours truly the flaming atheist, Humanist, Freethinker, Skeptic, religion-free apostate/heretic was raised by Lutheran parents and was herself, like her now equally religion-free ( but less flaming [4] ) spouse was once an active church member. But that’s a story for another day (preferably, a day involving cosumption of gin and tonics by both the storetellers and story listeners ).
A momentary digression for Educational Purposes®: moiself has been referred to, by other active and former Christians, as both a heretic and an apostate. Neither word is one I consider pejorative; both are arguable as to their applicability as labels for my beliefs and experiences. [5]. In general, both labels refer to someone’s rejection of the religion they are/were “in” and/or were raised in. The difference is in the degree of rejection. Apostates totally reject or renounce their religion; heretics stay (or attempt to stay) within their religion and/or religious community but openly hold and assert beliefs that contradict their religions’ theologies and doctrines. [6] (interesting factoid: at some point in time, every new religion/demonization has been accused of heresy/apostasy by their onetime co-religionists).
Moiself recently overheard a tidbit of a conversation in which one person was relaying to another their experience of being challenged as to their worthiness of ascending to a certain position in their work. This reminded me of a story shared with moiself by one of the pastors at Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto, the church where MH and I met.
Grace Lutheran was a congregation in the ELCA synod, the most liberal synod or wing of the American Lutheran churches. At that time (when MH and I were attending) Grace Lutheran had two co-pastors, one male and one female. I became friendly with both of them, in particular the female pastor, SK. This was in 1986, and although the ELCA had been ordaining women pastors since 1970, their acceptance was a slow process, and women pastors were not automatically welcomed with open arms. One afternoon a few months after I’d joined the church SK and I met for tea in downtown Hillsboro. During our wide-ranging conversation the subject of her being called [7] to Grace Lutheran came up. Specifically, I asked her how smooth the process had been: did she feel accepted by all of the congregation, or at least the majority?
SK told me that her call to Grace Lutheran went smoothly, although she was aware that the final vote of the congregation (to accept her call to be one of their pastors) was not unanimous. On her first Sunday at Grace Lutheran, the leaders of the congregation held a reception for SK in the church’s Fellowship Hall, after the worship service. The reception wound down after about two hours, which was a relief to SK, who, although grateful for the warm greetings she’d received, was beginning to think her petit frame could not bear another well-meaning handshake or congratulatory hug from the throngs of parishioners who introduced themselves to and welcomed her.
SK headed to the Fellowship Hall kitchen, intent upon helping the staff with KP duty, when one of the few parishioners remaining in the Fellowship Hall approached her. A Tall Elegantly Dressed Older Woman (TEDOW) smiled broadly at SK, introduced herself as a “long-time” Grace Lutheran member, and said, in a friendly tone of voice that belied the rebuffing sentiment she was about to utter, that she would like to take SK to lunch to tell SK why she had “voted against your call, as I don’t think you belong here.”
SK kept her composure, smiling in return as she thanked TEDOW for the lunch invitation…which SK declined.
Moiself was impressed by SK’s graciousness under fire, so to speak, and even more so by the rational simplicity of her response:
“No, thank you. I *am* here; I don’t have to defend my being here.” [8]
May you have fond memories of a loved one’s post-colonoscopy rantings; May you enjoy binging an old favorite TV series; May you never have to defend your being where are you; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[3] I suggested he go upstairs and sit or lie down, as he was rather wobbly standing. He wanted to go up the stairs by himself; I insisted he hold on to the handrail, which he did, while vaulting up the stairs two at a time. When I snapped at him to slow down he said, “It feels better this way!”
[4] Except when he’s high on Versed and flamboyantly rolling his r’s….
[7] Being called refers to the process by which churches find and employ their pastors. It varies between denomination and churches; here’s the link to ELCA call processes.
[8] I never met TEDOW. She (and her husband) left the congregation before I began attending. According to another congregant whom I quizzed about the incident, TEDOW and her husband were opposed to female ordination and also had problems with the other ways in which they felt their church was embracing heresy/leaning more liberal, and when they left Grace Lutheran they made sure that certain people knew they were leaving and were “taking their money” with them (implying that they were generous financial supporters of the church, which, that person I spoke with said, they were *not.*).
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
