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The Virtues I’m Not Signaling

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Department Of My Work Here Is Done

My entry into the virtue-signaling yard sign challenge.

 

 

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Department of WTF, HILLSBORO ?!?!?!?!?!

 

 

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Department Of Food For Thought, And For The Planet
Sub-Department Of It’s Just Too Damn Big A Problem For One Person…

…which is what keeps most of us, moiself  included, from taking definitive actions regarding global warming/climate change.  The problem is so big, so overwhelming, it’s easy to think we’ve gone too far already and nothing can save us so why drag out the inevitable – let’s all switch to coal-burning cars and get it over with….

 

 

However, “most of us,” as individuals, adds up to most of the planet, and if “most of us” made a concerted effort to change certain deleterious habits and adopt a more climate-friendly lifestyle, we could do the equivalent of sticking our fingers in the hole in the dike while our world leaders figure out a global energy strategy.  [1]

The following excerpts are from the recent Curiosity Daily podcast:  “The Climate Diet: 50 Simple Ways To Trim Your Carbon Footprint.”

The Climate Diet author Paul Greenberg:
“A very simple one would be to switch from beef to chicken. A lot of your listeners are thinking, ‘Oh, no, we have to go vegan…’  but it turns out actually that if we could get the real solid meat eaters to not necessarily go for the bean burger but go to chicken they would cut their (contribution to carbon) emissions per pound by 75%….
That is pretty big and pretty significant, so if you’re going to start with anything, why not start with that?

CD Host:
You also mentioned less cheese – what about that?

PG:
“…when I was in college everybody loved this cookbook called The Moosewood Cookbook – it was the vegetarian cookbook that everybody embraced, but man, is there a lot of cheese in there! Is it turns out that cheese is actually worse from an emissions standpoint than chicken….  If you’re choosing your diet based on (carbon) emissions, eating vegetarian with a lot of cheese is really not the best choice – actually chicken or even fish is even better…. I don’t want to de-emphasize veganism – veganism is absolutely the best way to go if you want to be your very best, but if you can’t get there, then moving away from beef and cheese is a good start.

So let’s just put it in perspective: a vegan diet, it  just blows doors off of everything:   [2]…a lentil, you’re talking about 0.9 kilos of carbon emissions per kilo of food; chicken is between 6 or 6, but beef is up at 27.”

 

 

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Department Of There’s Always Something

 

 

 

“…Fetterman called for universal health care, marijuana legalization, and a much higher minimum wage well before it was popular. Now…Fetterman wants to convince his fellow Democrats that their party’s future depends less on fighting over fracking and more on embracing legal weed and embracing their populist roots. “This idea [of climate change] that every climate scientist in the world agrees [on] — we need to run on that,” he says. “We also can’t tell a bunch of workers, ‘Go work at Duolingo.’ That’s not fair. We still need to be a manufacturing powerhouse, too.”

…I actually don’t use marijuana. But I think you should be able to, or any adult should be able to, legally, safely, taxed, and not label them a criminal. We need to expunge all criminal convictions. If there is anybody serving jail time for a marijuana conviction, get them out immediately.

…You want to heal this country? Let’s start by acknowledging some universal truths. Health care is a basic human need and right. You can’t fucking live off $7.25 an hour.…Why are we imprisoning people in the failed war on drugs? These are things that transcend politics.

Run on the truth, and that’s what I’ll do. Run on the truth. And if you win, great. If you lose, great. But I will always run on the truth.”

( excerpts from “Big John Fetterman Can Save the Democratic Party —
if the Democrats Let Him,” Rolling Stone, 11-12-20 )

Recently on our family message group, son K alerted us (MH, his sister Belle, and moiself  ) to the above article.  John Fetterman is running for the Senate in what will be a key or battleground state; K thought we might want to send some support ($$) his way, as Fetterman seems to be ‘right on” on many issues we consider common sense. This led to a fun and thoughtful family IM-discussion, some of which is excerpted here.

I had heard of John Fetterman; the RS article was a better introduction than the vague, “I-think-he’s-this-guy” ideas I’d had, and I checked out his website as well. I liked most of what he said and was impressed with his background story.   [3]    I did send a donation…but there was something that gave me pause.

About the pause: Enter and-what-else-is-new? territory:  No candidate is every going to be perfect, or check off on all your favorite issues.  [4]   I fully realize that, and strive not make the perfect the enemy of the good.

 

 

The RS reporter said that Fetterman has “…been out ahead on…issues that have since come into vogue: a higher minimum wage, marijuana legalization, same-sex marriage…” and Fetterman commented,

“I’ve never had to evolve on one of my positions on that because I’ve always said what I believe is true.”

 

 

Fetterman’s campaign website expands on this:

“You’ll always know where I stand. I haven’t had to evolve on the issues, because I ‘ve always said what I  believe is true and I’ve been championing the same core principles for the last 20 years.”

Hmmmmm.

As my bumper sticker so eloquently and succinctly puts it:

 

 

The sticker pokes fun at the creationists’ anti-evolution/science, but I’ll apply it to politics as well.  My opinions have evolved over time, as they should have, and as they will continue to do. The reasons moiself  holds the opinions I do is because I try to engage with the facts, and update my viewpoints as the what-we-know-about-this-issue changes. No issues, no opinions, are – or should be, IMHO –  static; it is unlikely that Fetterman or any candidate has been or will be on the right side of history when it comes to *every* issue.  Our country – our world – needs political servants who understand that, and who have the self-awareness and strength of character to change their minds when necessary.

You can also admire someone for “spine,” which can be evident in, as K pointed out, their willingness not to compromise on “insane [ political] [5]   demands.”

K:
“I’ll take uncompromising but passionate at this point since we have too many lackluster moderate democrats who don’t do shit.”

MH:
“I hope he’s willing to evolve his position even if it is one I currently agree with.”

Belle:
“I appreciate the intent behind the statement, but I agree that I’d want a representative who is willing to change their views and isn’t ashamed of it or tries to hide it.”

 

 

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Department Of This Is Why Life Is Worth Living…

… For hearing stories such as this.

Dateline: Thursday morning; returning from a walk; listening to the end of the podcast Gates McFadden Investigates: Who Do You Think You Are?

Actor/dancer/choreographer Cheryl Gates McFadden is best known for playing Dr. Beverly Crusher on Star Trek: TNG.  Her podcast is “…a series of conversations featuring close friends and former co-stars reminiscing on careers, personal life and more.” 

Yesterday I listened to “more” – part II of McFadden’s interview with actor, dancer and fellow Star Trek alum, Nana Visitor, who played Major Kira Nerys on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine[6]    At the end of the podcast, McFadden and Visitor were sharing stories about their family members.  The theme of the sudden realization that children – as well as adults –  can have, wherein a familiar sight or regular activity suddenly, inexplicably, seems confounding or amazing (e.g., re brushing your teeth: “What am I doing? I am putting a stick in my mouth and moving it up and down and around my jaw and teeth – why do people do this, and who invented it?“) was fertile ground for McFadden’s “shower story.”

“When my son was three…we have a very open, big bathroom…and we have an open shower.  I’m in the kitchen, and he runs in and says, ‘Mommy mommy, c’mere, c’mere, c’mere – mommy, mommy, come come come!‘  And we’re running, and he runs me right up to the shower, where his father is taking a shower.  And he points to his…(father’s penis)…and he says,
HAVE YOU SEEN THAT ?!?!’ 

And I said, ‘Yes, I have.’ “

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Global Warming Edition

Where did scientists get the idea that the ice caps are melting?
They just thawed it up.

Global warming will kill every single person on this planet.
It’s a good thing I’m married.

Did you know global warming is reducing terrorism?
The ISIS melting.

What is it called when vermiforms take over the world?
Global Worming.

 

 

*   *   *

May your positions on “the issues” be always evolving;
May you compose your own virtue-signaling yard sign;
May you hear stories (or see yard signs) that remind you why life is worth living;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Yes, there is a buttload of optimism in that last part.

[2] And not just because of all the legumes you’ll be eating! Sorry, but I’ve been suppressing fart jokes, with all the talk about diet and emissions, for a couple of paragraphs now, and I just need to let ’em rip….

[3] Three cheers for anyone running for office who is *not* a lawyer!

[4] And if you find one that does, you’d better look again, because it’s likely either you – or the candidate – are missing something.

[5] Read: Republican.

[6] Be forewarned: if you listen to part one of the interview – and I think you should – it  contains the story of Visitor’s near death experience (she was kidnapped and raped by two men, who followed her when she drove home after a late night on the ST:DS9 set and discussed with each other what to do with her body [they’d planned on killing her] after the attack).  She suffered from trauma-induced PTSD for years afterward; her recovery plus her ongoing work in and advocacy for mental health issues is an amazing story of courage and resilience.

The Theory I’m Not Solving

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Department Of Strange Bedfellows

 

Because…yeah. I don’t know about you, but moiself  would have no qualms trusting the person who extends my eyelashes to tend to my nervous system.

 

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Department Of Adages Revisited
Sub Department OF Why I Don’t have My Own Marital Counseling Practice

 

 

Classic advice:

Never go to bed angry.

Translation: Never go to bed when you are angry with your partner, lest a bad feeling hardens into resentment. Resolve the argument before going to bed.

But, that’s not always possible. Sometimes you’re too tired and/or cranky to resolve things diplomatically – that’s why you’re about to “go to bed angry” in the first place.  So: go to bed; get some sleep; wake up, have a nice breakfast together…. Maybe, come the morning, whatever caused the argument won’t seem so serious.

Moiself’s suggested classic advice addendum:


Never go to bed angry.
Oh, okay – go to bed angry if you must, but with someone else.
   [1]

 

 

Actually, I’d say this advice is even crappier:

 

 

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Department Of Sometimes The Best Intentions…

I drove past someone’s house recently, and saw a new sign in their front yard.  The sign was similar in size, design and “composition” as the Black Lives Matter signs, only with a different message.

 

The message refers to  [2]  stopping the rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans. However, its phrasing prompted moiself  to picture the following scenario:  moiself  driving past the sign, a well-meaning-but-clueless, elderly relative with me in the car – e.g., my late mother – who reads the sign, then sincerely wonders aloud,

“I don’t understand  – what do Asians hate?”

 

“They all seem so nice….”

 

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Department Of
Cults? – Schmultz!  They’re All Cults

“…I remembered Toni Morrison’s statement that ‘the function of freedom is to free someone else.’  Utah wasn’t the Deep South, and we Mormon dissidents were hardly the Underground Railroad. But I did believe that our culture had trapped us, that many Latter-Day Saints lived in mental and social prisons that perpetuated precisely the kind of insanity with which I’d grown up.  It wasn’t slavery, but it was a powerful form of bondage: the belief that God had ordained a pattern of secrets and silence, that religious authority always trumped one’s individual sense of right and wrong, that the evidence of the senses must bow to the demands of orthodoxy, no matter how insane. It was a kind of institutionalized madness….”
( “Leaving the Saints: How I lost the Mormons and Found My Faith,”
By Martha Beck )

Dateline:  circa 5 years ago; Tacoma WA. Son K and a few of his college buddies are sharing stories about their various experiences with Mormons/the LDS religion.  K’s friend and housemate SP is from Utah; SP and his family were minorities, as non-Mormons living in Salt Lake City.  After listening to the other’s stories about the Mormon beliefs and behaviors that the friends found odd, SP chimes in:

“You all have *no* idea…. Out here, you have Mormon LITE.”  [3]

 

 

K shared SP’s remarks over a recent Sunday dinner, with MH and I and friend LAH, after I’d spoken about having just finished Tara Westover’s book, Educated: A Memoir.  The book is gripping, disturbing, at times downright horrifying, and ultimately/eventually a wee bit encouraging.  I found Westover’s beautiful prose to be an often-jarring contrast to that which the prose presents: the account of her childhood, raised in a family headed by a fanatical, fundamentalist LD, survivalist, paranoid father (a man who was also likely afflicted with bipolar disorder    [4]  ).  There were inspiring segments of the book which depicted the author’s inexplicably indomitable spirit (where did it come from, given her environment?); still, I had a headache at the end of each reading day – moiself  realized I’d been clenching my jaw when reading through passages depicting the physical, emotional, and intellectual neglect and abuse she lived with, and the narrow confines of her world.

Westover yearned to be “educated,” in a world where women and girls were to aspire to nothing more than marriage and motherhood – in a world where she was told that to want an education was sinful and that women and girls must obey men and boys, even to the point of enduring sickening abuse from her psychotic brother.  She did manage to extricate herself (physically, if not completely emotionally) from that world, but at great cost to her psyche.  Her portrayal of the cost of childhood suffering, of the power that abusers (and those who abet them) wield, is chillingly insightful.  Although I highly recommend the book, it also (and literally) gave me nightmares.

MH recommended the book to me a couple of years ago, and I’d listened to the Fresh Air interview with the author (which aired in 2019).  I immediately thought of that interview when I read the first paragraph of the “Author’s Note” at the end of Educated:

“This story is not about Mormonism.
Neither is it about any other form of religious belief.
In it there are many types of people, some believers, some not; some kind, some not. The author disputes any correlation, positive or negative, between the two.”

 

 

Well, that was…odd.  Most such disclaimers are at the beginning of *novels,* or short fiction collections. (“This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.”).  It made me somewhat disappointed in FA host Terry Gross’s otherwise excellent interview.  Did Gross not read the Author’s Note?  If she did, why didn’t she ask Westover about it – was that disclaimer something the publishing company’s lawyers insisted on?

Readers generally understand that, even in non-fiction, individuals and their actions are not meant to represent Everyone and Everything. The “Author’s Note” struck me as being so unnecessary – and also, so fearful, of possible litigation, perhaps…and the author’s personal safety.

As per the latter: The LDS church is not as prone to rabid-dog harassment techniques as Scientology (whose “fair game,” policy re critics stated that “An enemy of Scientology, referred to as a suppressive person (SP), may be deprived of property or injured by any means by any Scientologist…may be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed.”    [5]  ).  Still, the LDS church has been known to lawyer-up when they think they have been presented in a bad light (in particular, by those who have managed to leave the church).  But their most effective defense has been the spiritual training – read: psychological torture – with which members have been inculcated.

When I read Martha Beck’s memoir Leaving the Saints, I remember a section of the book where Beck wrote about the rituals she and her husband   [6]  participated in during their temple wedding (aka, “sealing” [7]   ).  Beck was willing to detail charges of sexual abuse against a very powerful LDS icon – her father, Mormon apologist Hugh Nibley –  yet stopped short of describing the vows of secrecy (re the temple rituals) she and her husband made “for time and all eternity.”  I recall she used almost a joking tone in addressing any readers who might be Mormon enforcers, writing something along the lines of, “Hey guys, I promised not to reveal the exact content, and I didn’t, okay? So please don’t disembowel me.”

There was an implicit seriousnessy behind her joshing: fear. She’d written this supposed tell-all book, yet she still was afraid to tell all.

 

 

I’d known about the vows Mormons take in temple rituals (in which they acknowledge the penalties they might face for revealing such secrets), but “known about” as in, I only knew that such vows existed – their content remained a mystery.  Even Ex-Mos who had openly renounced everything else LDS seemed uniformly silent on the matter.  Then, along came Richard Packham, founder of The Exmormon Foundation.

During the 2012 Presidential election Packham was troubled by the fact that vast majority of American voters – the vast majority of *anyone* outside of Mormonism – had no knowledge of the secret oaths Romney had taken as a faithful Mormon.  Packham wondered aloud (as, in an article he wrote for businessinsider.com ):

“The question for American voters is: Knowing that Romney has taken this secret oath,   [8]   and that he is a faithful Mormon, do you want him to answer the question,
‘Would you feel bound by your sacred oath to obey the law of consecration that you made in the endowment ceremony and use the power of the presidency to benefit the Mormon church?’ “

Packham noted that “In all the extensive media coverage of Mitt Romney, much of it discussing his religion, not a word have I seen about the secrets of Mormonism, the secrets of Romney’s life-long beliefs and practices.”

 

 

Growing up as a Mormon close in age to Mitt Romney, Packham was, like Romney, “initiated into those same secrets.”  Unlike Romney, Packham left Mormonism and decided to talk and write about it, including describing LDS secrets such as the endowment ritual   [9]  and other rituals, wherein Mormons are instructed in the “signs” and “tokens” of the Mormon priesthood, are given special “names” (or “passwords”), and must make an oath to never reveal these, outside the temple.

“…when Romney and I first went through this ceremony, we were taught that each of the first three signs and tokens also had a ‘penalty’ associated with each one, and we had to mime various ways of taking life to represent the penalty to us if we were to reveal the secret signs and tokens: slitting one’s own throat, ripping open one’s chest, disemboweling oneself. Yes, folks, this was part of the most sacred ritual in Mormonism: pantomiming your own bloody death.

So Mitt Romney, and all other righteous Mormons, can be confident that they know the secret passwords and secret handshakes to get into heaven. Do you see why Romney and his church are reluctant for ‘unworthy’ people (the rest of us, including Mrs. Romney’s parents) to know about this?
As Deborah Laake   [10]  put it in her autobiographical book, “Secret Ceremonies”:

“The actions that were going to guarantee my entrance at the gates [of heaven] would have nothing to do with love or charity or the other teachings of Christ that I’d been raised to believe God valued. In fact, I hadn’t heard a single one of those words spoken today, the most primary day of religious instruction in my entire life. No, I was going to burst into heaven on the basis of mumbo-jumbo. … The mysteries of life were fraternity rituals. … Did all the white-suited glorifiers in the room unquestioningly accept a ritual of nutty gestures from the pseudo-occult as a sacrament? Those were the first moments when I viewed Mormonism with suspicion.”

Or, as summarized by a Mormon missionary: ‘If we told investigators [prospective converts to Mormonism] about that, they wouldn’t join, because it’s too weird!’ “

(excerpts from, “An Ex-Mormon Describes Some ‘Secrets’ Of The Church”
Businessinsider.com, 7-30-12 )

 

 

Lest you think I pick on the LDS too much  [11]  back to the dinner table discussion: when moiself  described Westover’s book to K and LAH as the author’s story of growing up in a Mormon fundamentalist cult, MH offered his opinion, that “It was more of a cult of that father.”   We all then spoke of the fundy cults/offshoots of Mormonism with which we were famililar, offshoots which, like all so-called cults, serve to make the mainstream or parent religion – in this case, Mormonism –  look “better,” in a way, especially to non-believers.

Most religious believers deride (and even loathe and/or fear) people in “cults,” but don’t realize they are in one themselves.  Mainstream Christians laugh at the gullibility of Mormons who can believe that a god gave a revelation to Joseph Smith through golden tablets (which Smith translated via a magic stone he placed in his hat), but believe their god gave one of their prophets a revelation through stone tablets.  They sneer at snake-handling faith healers who babble nonsense (aka, speak in tongues) and believe in prophecy, even as they themselves pray for people to be healed and hurricanes to be halted, and talk about an apocalyptic End Times.

When does a cult become a religion?

* When it is granted a tax-free status by the Government.
* When it progresses from killing its members to killing non-members.

All religions begin as cults. Christianity began as one of several competing messianic sects and became a religion when Paul and his followers began proselytizing outside Judea. Cults fade away when those who knew the founder die. Who remembers the Ranters, the Sandemanians or the Muggletonians now?
(excerpts from “Notes and queries,” ethical conundrums, theguardian.com )

What is a religion, but a cult with more money and real estate, and better lawyers and PR?  All religions began as cults – as offshoots of a mainstream religion.  Once they achieve mainstream status, established religions benefit from the existence of cults, in that they can point religion skeptics toward the cult’s beliefs and practices and say, “At least we’re not like that.”

 

 

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Department of Explanations

Dateline: Tuesday am, morning walk. Moiself  is listening to the season 13 trailer for the Clear + Vivid podcast, in which host Alan Alda and the C+V  producer preview the new season.  One preview plays excerpts from Alda’s interview with theoretical physicist and author Michio Kaku, whose latest book is The God Equation: the quest for the theory of everything.  Alda describes Kaku as “one of our culture’s leading communicators… about one of the most tantalizing and hard to understand questions ever raised: ‘Is there a theory of everything?’ – is there some formula that explains pretty much every phenomenon of the universe?” And what would the effects of such a theory mean to you and me?  

“The immediate, practical implication of finding the theory of everything is…nothing. It’s not going to effect you or me, I’ll be very blunt with you.  However, it will answer some of the deepest philosophical, religious questions of all time….”
(excerpt of C+V interview with Michio Kaku)     [12]

I gotta wonder: should I save Dr. Kaku and his peers some time and energy, by submitting to them *my* concept?  In a mere four words, my Theory Of Everything ® :

“Yep; there it is.”

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Theoretical Physics Edition

Q: Why should you go out wining and dining with neutrons?
A: Wherever they go, there’s no charge.

A husband walks in on his wife, who is a string theorist, in bed with another man.
She shouts, “I can explain everything!”

Do radioactive cats have 18 half-lives?   [13]

 

*   *   *

May you come up with your own Theory of Everything;
May you be grateful toward those who encouraged you to be educated;
May you realize that nobody, under any circumstances, ever needs to have their eyelashes extended;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi

*   *   *

[1] As in, not the person you’re angry with.

[2] I can just about 100% safely assume.

[3] Move along folks; no footnote to see here.

[4]  A diagnosis he would have rejected in favor of some explanation involving evil spirits and/or devils. 

[5] “6 insane ways the Church of Scientology has tried to silence its critics,” salon 3-15-15

[6]  Who is now also ex-Mormon, as well as her ex-husband.

[7]   Mormons have two kinds of weddings:  Temple weddings, and non-temple.  Not all Mormons “qualify” for a temple wedding, even if they desire one.  “If you don’t know much about Mormon weddings, there’s a good reason for it. The Mormons don’t want you to find out. Temple marriages are top-secret affairs — absolutely no non-Mormons are allowed to see these hidden events. Even some practicing Mormons, who aren’t deemed worthy of a ‘temple recommend,’ will be asked to wait outside. This can be downright heartbreaking for LDS couples with friends and family outside the faith, who find themselves without their loved ones by their side on their big day.  (excerpt from “Mormon weddings “)

My sister’s (non-religious) freshman college roommate was aggressively courted by a senior boy who was a Mormon. When they married, she asked my sister to be her maid of honor.  My sister, after months of warily watching her roommate being wooed, did not approve of the relationship, but wanted to support her roommate, and agreed.  My sister, after buying and then of course wearing the dress, had to stand outside the temple – along with the bride’s parents (who paid for the wedding and the reception)! – during the ceremony, because they were not Mormons.

[8] Several oaths, actually, but the one Packham refers, “The Law of Consecration,”  involves, if Romney won the election, thanking God for blessing him with the presidency and, as per that oath, promising to use that blessing for the benefit of the Mormon church.

[9] “a ritual reenactment of the creation, Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden, mortal experience, and the return to God’s presence. At each stage of this progression, participants make covenants in the name of Jesus Christ.” (So What Happens in an LDS Temple?  The Salt Lake Tribune. )

[10] Deborah Laake was a journalist and editor, raised and married in the LDS church, and was excommunicated by the church “…for apostasy because of her criticisms and also for her ‘detailed revelation of top-secret Mormon temple ceremonies’ ” shortly after the publication of her book, Secret Ceremonies, “a candid and critical account of her experiences growing up and marrying as a member of the LDS church.” ( Wikipedia entry for Laake. )

[11] Due to the book I read, LDS it was the primary topic, but longtime readers of this blog know I am a skeptic and debunker of all religions.

[12] I think 12 footnotes is more than enough.

[13] Thirteen footnotes is even more extravagant.

The After-Procedure Instructions I’m Not Following

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Department Of When The Word Gets Out About His Instructions
This Doctor Will Be Booked Years In Advance

Hmm…what to keep and what to shred?

MH decided to store his COVID vaccine card in his medical file, which was filled with papers that were decades old.  He decided to downsize the file, and began skimming the various papers. Flipping through the multi-page instructions for his colonoscopy of many years ago, he noted that each page had a heading for the various instructions, which were divided into sections: e.g., “how to prepare the week before,” “what to do before your procedure, “what to do following your procedure.” Each heading got its own page.  If all of the section’s instructions didn’t fit on one page, the instructions continued on the next page, with the heading.

This layout proved unfortunate – read: highly entertaining – for the last set of instructions, “what to do following your procedure,” as there was no room for the last “Do not,” heading, which then printed on a page of its own:

 

 

 

Yeah, after your procedure, drink *any* alcoholic beverage.

What the heck, DRINK ‘EM ALL. 

*   *   *

Department Of Why I Share Stories Like These
Sub Department Of Best Comeback Ever

I share stories like the above, whether they are my “own” or someone else’s, because I am selfish.  I share them for my own personal enjoyment.  The pleasure I take in it is not what you may be thinking – it’s not so much in the telling of the stories, it’s that moiself  loves hearing *other* people’s stories.  And I know and expect – due both experience and a wee knowledge of psychology – that by sharing a certain kind of story, at least at least one person hearing/reading it will be reminded, prompted, or “loosened up” enough    [1]  to share a related story of their own.

True to expectations, when I forwarded MH’s colonoscopy instructions story to select friends and family, I got some feedback. One story in particular had me

ROTFLMAOLABABCFATMAFSOTC

Which I think is the acronym for

Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off losing all bowel and bladder control foaming at the mouth and flinging saliva onto the ceiling.

 

 

Perhaps…not that dramatic. But when I was out to lunch with MH and checked my email, when moiself  read the following anecdote my cousin DF shared with me I laughed so hard and suddenly that I spewed some of my Gardenburger dangerously close to MH’s French fries.

“A nurse (RN) named Annie always used to help with my colonoscopies (I had 5 of ’em ……colonoscopies, not nurses). Annie once told me that mixing the salty, night-before-prep with tequila would easily help me get through all the fluid intake …and better handle the subsequent fluid outtake.

Another time, Annie was about to give me a shot in the arm. She pushed up my sleeve, rubbed alcohol onto the injection site, then said ‘prick’ …to which I immediately replied ‘bitch.’

I was summarily jabbed big-time.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking of Sharing Stories…
Does Any One Else’s Cat Do This?

 

 

One of our cats, Nova (pictured above, looking suspiciously innocent), from time to time performs an odd…ritual (?)…as part of her morning ablutions.   After she uses the litter box for #2, she leaps out of the box and proceeds to run several laps around the house, sometimes accompanied by her come-play-with-me!  vocalizing.

Moiself  calls this behavior *Nova’s Happy Turd Trot.*  My interpretation is that she’s running for joy (“I feel so much lighter now, I could fly!”)  Because these incidents in the past  [2]  were occasionally accompanied by MH and/or I finding a…ahem…”turd on the loose” (or worse yet, skidmarks on the carpet), MH says that she does it because she feels that “something is chasing her” (read: one of her turd astronauts has not quite made its splashdown).

I think we’re both correct.

 

Well, neither are *we,* queenie, as we have no servants to return the wayward turd to its proper receptacle.

 

*   *   *

“Well, sometimes the magic works. Sometimes, it doesn’t.”
(Old Lodge Skins, played by Chief Dan George, Little Big Man)

Dateline: Tuesday,  circa 6 am; doing my morning 15 minutes of meditation, which is not going so smoothly. Moiself’s  monkey mind is drifting even more than usual; I decide to forgo my typical techniques and concentrate on my breath while repeating a pay attention kind of mantra, or reminder, to moiself.  I chose arguably the most deceptively simply yet profound mindfulness phrase, “Be here now,” which does the trick for about five breath cycles, until my baboon brain takes it for a spin…and I hear moiself  thinking to moiself:

Be here now
Bees here now
Bear here now
Bear hair here now
Bear hears cow
Care bears cow
Beet hairs now
Barley here now
Beer here now
My beer is barely here now
Wait a minute – I don’t even drink beer…

 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Petty Pleasures
Number 479 In A Series

This has happened more than once – moiself  deriving childish amusement via witnessing the cuisine-related faux pas of someone else.   [3]  Dateline for the most recent incident: last Tuesday, 12:45 pm-ish.  I was in a Thai restaurant,   [4]  in a seat by the counter, enjoying my panang curry and watching people coming in to pick up their phone-in/to-go orders.

The restaurant owner greeted each person who picked up an order by reading off the order’s contents (“Two Pad Thai shrimp; two red curry, veggie….”) .  One customer, as she received her to-go bag of three curry dishes with rice, asked if there were chopsticks with her order.  “Three napkins and utensils included,” said the restaurant owner, who pointed at a basket on the counter which was filled with forks and spoons wrapped in napkins. “You need more utensils?”

“I want chopsticks,” the customer said. The owner repeated that utensils were already in the bag; the customer repeated that she wanted chopsticks.

 

I eat all my food with chopsticks.

 

I wondered if that was that customer’s first time ordering Thai food.  If she’d have looked around she might have noticed that the tables were set with napkins and forks.  No chopsticks in sight.

Many Americans, not wanting to be seen as “Oriental food” newbies, mistakenly think chopsticks should accompany any food they identify as Asian (Does it come with rice?  Check; it’s Asian.    [5]  ,   [6] apparently not knowing (or caring?) about the nuances of eating Asian and south-Asian cuisines.

 

Thais eat Thai food with a spoon and fork, not chopsticks.

 

I have witnessed customers at Thai restaurants berating servers for not bringing them chopsticks.  A Thai restaurant employee told me that so many non-Asian Americans want to appear as if they know what they are doing when it comes to Asian food and thus (mistakenly) insist on using chopsticks to eat their Thai food, that Thai restaurants keep a supply of chopsticks on hand for just that purpose.    [7]

Rule #1: Put Down The Damn Chopsticks!
The spoon (usually a table spoon) is used to bring food to your mouth. The fork is used to maneuver your food around your plate and onto the spoon. Generally, spoon in the right hand; fork in the left.
Individual table settings will not have a knife. Knives are used in the kitchen – not the dining table. Meat is served already cut-up into bite sizes. When you do need to cut something on your plate, Thais will use the spoon.
Thais use chopsticks when eating Chinese food. (Duh!) They also use chopsticks for their varieties of noodle soup….
But even then, the chopsticks are used to snatch goodies from your (noodle soup) bowl and place them onto a spoon.
( Thai table manners – put down the chopsticks! mythailandblog.com )

 

My favorite Thai cookbook.  No eating utensils necessary.

 

*   *   *

Department Of That Which Comes from Social Media Prompts

I can’t remember the exact phrasing of the prompt, which I saw on Facebook.  It was something along the lines of,

“Date yourself by naming one concert you have attended.”

The first one I thought of that fit the bill was a double bill, featuring bands which my offspring would likely have never heard of:  Cheap Trick opened for The Runaways .  I googled The Runaways to find their touring history, to get the date right (it was the Santa Monica Auditorium gig, in April 1977), and by doing so I came across a link to “Bad Reputation,” a 2018 documentary about The Runaways’ cofounder, Joan Jett.  Guess what I streamed on TV that night?

 

 

I’ve long loved Joan Jett’s songs, and she’s fun to see in concert. Besides the afore-mentioned gig, I saw Jett a couple of times in her post-Runaways year, rocking up a sweat storm  with her band, The Blackhearts.  Somewhere in my attic is a cassette tape I cherish:  a DJ friend of mine persuaded Ms. Jett to record a personalized birthday greetings for moiself [8]

As much as I enjoyed most of the documentary, I found some of it painful to watch. In particular, that which pained me is at odds with the sentiments of Jett’s lyrics from the documentary’s titular song:

♫  I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
You’re living in the past, it’s a new generation
A girl can do what she wants to do
And that’s what I’m gonna do…

And I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
Never said I wanted to improve my station
And I’m only doin’ good when I’m havin’ fun
And I don’t have to please no one…

I don’t give a damn ’bout my reputation
Never been afraid of any deviation
And I don’t really care if you think I’m strange
I ain’t gonna change…  ♫
(“Bad Reputation,” first three verses, sans chorus)

Living in the past it’s a new generation…yeah, I wish. Seeing the Joan of the present compared with the past makes me want to listen to Lawrence Welk muzak, for some reason.  Her punk fuck you musical persona aside, obviously, Joan cares about celebrity standards of appearance (for women).  Although she sings otherwise she seems afraid of any deviation from the Hollywood norm, as per her present visage.  Her countenance evinces the er facplastic surgery stretching associated with the most insecure, fading former debutante, instead of the bad ass rocker she *should* look like, at her age.  You’re living in the past, it’s a new generation ? There’s nothing new, or punk or empowering, about Jett’s overly taut, plasticized face.

The documentary featured interviews with many actors, composers, producers, and musicians who expressed admiration for or had a connection to Jett, and the gender contrasts were striking.  Why is it that male rockstars like Iggy Pop and Keith Richards are allowed to be comfortable with their accurately aging faces and bodies (which look like they’ve been in a raisin-drying contest since the 1600s),  when Jett evidently feels that she has to try to recreate the forehead she had at age 15 – and the mouth that she *never* had  [9]  – when she is in her mid-60s?

 

 

 

I dunno…. Is it pettiness on behalf of moiself , that allows me to be distracted by the obvious cosmetic augmentations of the present as compared with Jett’s face of the past?  I just wish that JJ felt the same, because she was so cool in so many ways. 

When it comes to “cosmetic dermatologic procedures” it’s easy for me, not being in the public eye (anymore) and subject to the ruthless scrutiny of their appearance that “public” women get, to critique other women who fall for it go for it. Although, as per the scrutiny, I did recently get an email from a cosmetic dermatology practice telling me that I needed to avail moiself  of their services. “How do they know?”  I asked MH, after I read the email.  “Have they placed cameras behind our mirrors?”

Once again, I digress.

On a marginally related note, I’ve never liked the classic Happy Birthday Song ®.  If you’re going to serenade moiself  on my birthday – and why *wouldn’t* you? – I’d prefer a verse or two of The Mary Tyler Moore Show theme.  Guess who has done the best cover, IMHO?  Take it away, Joan:

 

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Punk Rocker Edition

You can always give punk rock bands constructive criticism –
they 
appreciate feedback.

Q. What has eight arms and still can’t play bass worth shit?
A: Squid Vicious.

Johnny was a punk rocker in the 80’s. Now he makes crockery at the pottery center
a
nd jokes about it.  He’s come full circle: he’s a pun crocker.

 

*   *   * 

 

May the concerts you attend never date you;
May you never ask for chopsticks at a Thai restaurant;
May you follow your entertaining colonoscopy instructions to the letter;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] As in, “Whoa boy, if she can tell/admit to that, then I can say ______ “

[2] Hardly ever anymore, now that she gets hairball supplements with her dinner.  And just in case your brain was going there, she has regular vet care and has never had worms, or any other parasite that might account for…whatever it is she’s doing.

[3] As in not moiself – no, never.

[4] The simple pleasure of being able to do that, again!

[5] A sweet, culinarily clueless relative said that to me, once, as per how he knows “what kind” of food he’s eating.

[6] Chinese; Japanese; Thai; Vietnamese; Cambodian – it’s all the same, right?

[7] The people I’ve spoken with said it’s easier to just give chopsticks to those who ask, rather than trying to explain Thai table manners.  One server, himself Thai, said that a white customer berated him for not knowing that “Asian food required chopsticks” and implied that forks were for children and adults who could not handle chopsticks.

[8] Jett was doling PR at his station, recording a promo.  Thanks, Erndawg – one of the best birthday presents, ever!

[9] What is it with the batwing-tipped, cupid’s bows on her upper lip?  The contrast with her natural mouth, so evident with archival footage – DUH – is bizarre, to say the least.

The Limerence I’m Not Seeking

Comments Off on The Limerence I’m Not Seeking

Department Of Quarantine Reflections
Sub-Department of The Neurobiology Of Love

“Neuroscientists have studied madly-in-love folks, putting them in the fMRI machine…. The parts of the brain that ‘light up’ while looking at the lover are the same brain areas activated by cocaine—the reward centers. These researchers concluded that love is like a drug.

… The chemicals of early love: testosterone (the hormone fueling the sex drive in both men and women), dopamine (focusing on ‘that special someone’), and oxytocin (the bonding hormone/neurotransmitter)….in early love, the critical part of the brain goes quiet…

Crazy in love is a temporary state; the brain can’t stand the intensity forever. At some point the critical parts of the brain come back online, and we see our partners, warts and all. The jazzed-up chemicals settle down, and our drug high gives way to a calmer brain state. Romantic love, researchers find, yields to a tamer version, called companionate love….

Many couples are deeply disappointed when their romance fades into a more sedate version. They crave the high of early love, dopamine and all. Some have affairs, or divorce and remarry, seeking another hit of the drug. But eventually the new relationship will become old….

‘I still love my wife, but I’ve fallen out of love with her,’ a man said to me recently. He’s missing the hit of the drug, and is thinking of looking elsewhere for that love high again. To my mind, ‘falling out of love’ sounds so passive—like falling into a pothole! I propose a more proactive view of long-term love, in which both partners work to create a great relationship. Once the initial glow wears off, the real work of loving begins. The stakes are high; while happy relationships are associated with health and longevity, the stress of an unhappy marriage can result in illness and earlier death.”

(“After the Thrill Is Gone: The Science of Long-Term Love,”
Mona Fishbane, PhD, writing on goodtherapy.org )

 

“Frankly my dear, after the dopamine dips, I won’t give a damn.”

 

“That warm, fuzzy feeling…called limerence…refers to the intense, involuntary attraction we feel during the first stages of a romantic relationship. Limerence is often characterized by intrusive thoughts (we can’t stop thinking about someone) and a need for reciprocation (we can’t stand the thought of being rejected by someone).

Limerence has a biological basis. When we are first attracted to someone, our brains release chemicals like norepinephrine and dopamine, which make our hearts flutter and make us feel happy.

The feeling of limerence can last for weeks or decades, although most people start to feel its decline within a year or two of starting a romantic relationship. As we form a lasting romantic bond, dopamine and norepinephrine stop flowing. They’re replaced by hormones associated with social bonding, like oxytocin.”

(

Heart-racing romantic feelings fade over time — here’s why,”
Rose Wesche, Assistant professor, Virginia Tech,
Department of Human Development and Family Science. 

“It’s just limerence, darling. We’ll live through it.”

 

Although more and more people are becoming vaccinated, the health care, social, psychological, and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will linger for some time.  Perhaps it’s too early to be in “look back” mode, but since I have been fully vaccinated, moiself’s  mind tends to go there.  “There” includes bits of wisdom I attempted to impart to my offspring – when they were still in the nest, and then reminders   [1]  after they’d left – about the good which can come from hard times, including:

* realizing the value of resilience

* discovering, on more than a theoretical level, that you are (or can learn to be)
more resilient and adaptable than you may have previously thought.

In the past year+ I have been reading about how people got on each other’s nerves during the pandemic.  Fortunately, there were also stories about how some lucky folks found new things to admire in their partners and family members.  A particularly pleasant side effect of the pandemic for moiself  has been the reminder,

Oh yeah, I married the right guy.
(Right for *me,* that is).

MH has simply been…easy to be with.  I hope he found moiself  as agreeable (or at least as tolerable) as I found him. 

 

 

I don’t want to make light of what has been a trying time for all families, and very difficult for some.  I also realize that, in this stage of our lives…well, things might have been way different if our offspring were not successfully fledged but were instead school age/living at home and we had to juggle both childcare and education responsibilities, and if our economic situation had been precarious and/or not amenable to working from home. 

As fun (and also overwhelming) as the passion of the early times of a relationship can be, I have always and strongly believed that romantic love is overemphasized by our culture, and that relationships which prioritize that “romance” side of love above all else are doomed to fail, as the partners conflate the ebbing of romantic feelings with diminishment of the relationship.  As per the research quoted in the above excerpts, romantic love by its very nature has a shelf life, determined in part by the sheer newness of getting to know someone as well as by the biological realities  [2]   which produce those over-hyped romantic emotions.

Although the following Life Advice ® of mine is unlikely to inspire cinematic tales of inspirational star-crossed lovers, it is, IMHO, essential:

Marry someone whose essential qualities and temperament make you think,
“This is someone I could stand to be quarantined with.”

To put it in terms of my own ongoing realization:

“More important than ‘being in love’ with this person
is the fact that I *like* him.”

 

How could I not love a man who lets me take a picture of him with his hair in a “granny knot” (courtesy of daughter Belle’s styling skills)?

 

*   *   *

Department Of Back In The Saddle

Those who know me, and/or who have been reading this blog since before the pandemic, know that I am a fan of seeing movies in a movie theatre.  While I am grateful for the many streaming services that kept us all entertained during the times of social/physical isolation, I am now Making Up For Lost Time. ®   In the past five days moiself  has seen three movies, in a movie theatre:

* Cruella

* A Quiet Place Part II

* Dream Horse

Abby the Emotional Support Avocado gives two thumbs up to each.    [3]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Things Unlikely To Happen In My Lifetime

As part of my coming-out-of-pandemic mindset, I still like to think of such things, even if they are unlikely to happen.  “Things” as in, solving the world’s pressing problems.  “Things” along the lines of, what would happen If I Ran The World ® ? And by ‘running the world’ I do not mean moiself  would be doing so as a queen or any kind of monarchist, ’cause y’all know how I feel about that.

 

 

Rather, If I Ran The World ® things would be like this:

* All nations would agree upon a “Marshall Plan” (or series of plans), to stop the damage we are doing to our home planet and for cleaning up the messes we’ve already made. Those coming up with workable solutions would be compensated (and celebrated) to the highest financial and “celebrity” degree.  [4]   Instead of being hailed for designing an app for more convenient shopping or food delivery or online gaming, the creative young (and older) engineering, artistic and scientific minds would be encouraged to pool resources and take up the various challenges (“Ok, our group will solve ground water storage and pollution; yours will do topsoil rejuvenation…”).

Components of this plan include coming up with solutions for

– renewable/sustainable non-polluting energy sources

– cleaning/filtering pollutants from our land skies and seas

– halting and reversing global warming

For example, in this if-I-ran-the-world scenario in no one would be using or manufacturing plastics anymore,  but what about the bazillion tons of plastic refuse that already exist? Somewhere out there is an idealistic student, in the suburbs of Portland or the streets of New Delhi, who is eager to put her brilliant but unappreciated mind to work inventing or discovering a bacteria or other organism that eats plastics and excretes something useful – or at least non-toxic –  in return  (read: that doesn’t turn into the sci-fi movie bogeyman which is going to take revenge on us all).

 

Unless of course, the organism turns out to be the inspiration for a classic monster movie, ala “The Blob.” Then I say, bring it on!

 

* National boundaries as such would become an anachronism; nations and governments would be organized according to Bioregions.   [5]

* Daylight savings or standard time – we’d pick one of those for our clocks to be set to, year-round, and we’d adjust our work and school schedules accordingly.   [6]   The choice would be in agreement with what medical science tell us is optimal for the human mind and body.   

* High Schools would eliminate the teaching of trigonometry and/or Algebra 2, and a mandatory math class for all students would be statistics and data analysis (aka Data Science).  [7]

* The percent of religious believers worldwide will continue to decline.

 

 

Religious believers may still cling to their creation mythologies and other dogmas: practitioners of the three major Abrahamic religions ( Christians and Jews and Muslims ) will be free to believe that the earth as it currently exists was created in six days 6000 years ago by their god, which then fashioned a man from dust/clay and a woman from a man’s rib; Hindus may believe in their various origins mythos, including that Brahma created the cosmos from a lotus flower which grew from Lord Vishnu’s navel with Brahma sitting on it, or that life in the universe came from the cracking of an enormous egg;  Wiccans can hold that “the Goddess” birthed a race of spirits that filled the world and became humans, animals, plants, and all living beings; Scientologists may assure one another that Tom Cruise is the heir to Xenu’s galactic confederacy ….[8]

Religious believers will be free to practice their beliefs as long as their doing so does not negatively impact their neighbors.  For example, in the privacy of their own homes and churches, Christians will still be able to appease their deities through reenacting their Jesus-as-the-ultimate-animal-sacrifice ritual via the symbolic cannibalism of communion.  However, there will be no governmental respecting of any religion’s theology, nor integration of such in public policy.  Religious believers will still be able to vote however they please but will not be able to influence other people’s healthcare options, nor demand that public education incorporate their folklore about the origins of the cosmos as if those myths held equal weight to the geologic, biologic, and astronomical evidence.

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Cinephile Edition

French movie fanatics want to open a floating cinema in Paris, with drive-in boats!
I just think that’s in Seine.

Have you seen the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie?
It’s rated aRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Why did Bruce Willis try to commit suicide with an overdose of Viagra?
He wanted to Die Hard.

What is the internal temperature of a Tauntaun?
Lukewarm.

 

Christopher Walken

 

Christopher Dancen.

 

*   *   *

May you appreciate those people you could stand to be quarantined with;
May you make plans *right now* to go to the movie theater;
May you start your own “If I Ran The World” list;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] “Reminders” sounds better than unsolicited life advice.

[2] Those romance hormones, like opiates and other “highs,” lose their potency as we develop tolerances to them.

[3] Well…Abby was a bit generous with Cruella, which needed at least 30 minutes of edits. 

[4] Although I’d like to think the minds capable of solving our problems would not care about fame, it only seems fair that they’d be celebrated – and rewarded for their contribution to humanity – more than, say, the actor with the most Academy Awards or the basketball player with the highest field goal percentage.

[5]bioregion is an ecologically and geographically defined area. Bioregionalism, as a governing philosophy, advocates that politicalcultural, and economic systems to be organized around bioregions (which are defined through environmental features such as watershed boundaries, soil and topographical characteristics), rather than via the arbitrary and often unjust national boundaries established over the centuries via wars, immigration and expansionist policies,  and desire for land acquisition and resource exploitation.

[6] Once every month or so, in order to maximize our productive times with the times of the most daylight,  we would adjust our schedules to start or end an hour earlier or later, and such changes would be implemented with a week’s warning time: “Remember, next week/in six days School/work class begins at 9 AM not 10 AM.” We don’t change our clocks; we change our schedules.  9 AM is still 9 AM.

[7] The reality is that few of us will go on to use trigonometry, but all of us need to know how to sort out the overwhelming amount of data to which we are subjected in our daily lives, and how to determine what are valid stats verses what is being used to manipulate us (i.e., make us afraid).

[8] whatever other horseshit spewed from L. Ron Hubbard’s money-grubbing mind….