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The World Languages I’m Not Learning

April 29, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, Isms (religion), movies, music, politics, radio & podcasts, school, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The World Languages I’m Not Learning

Department Of How Did I Not Know Until Now About This Song !?!?

Dateline: Monday am, 7:30 ish.  Morning walk/podcast listen: Clear + Vivid: Bette Midler: How She Became Divine.

 

 

The Divine Miss M herself was regaling host C+V  host Alan Alda with tales of her first European tour, and how the following ditty Midler performed on stage “…went down really well” in Germany.

(sung to the tune of the theme song of the movie, The Bridge Over The River Kwai) :

♫  Hitler…
had only one big ball
Goering…
had two but they were small
Himmler…
Had something similar
And poor old Goebbels
had no balls
at all.  ♫      [1]

I’d vaguely known about Hitler’s goofy gonads (he suffered from right-side cryptorchidism – an undescended testicle).  But the fact that this detail was woven into an anti-Nazi ditty delighted the spirit of the 11-year-old Girl Scout who still resides in me – the girl who wanted to sit in the back during the boring troop meetings and exchange bawdy jokes with the other so-inclined scouts instead of listening to yet another boring lecture on how we were supposed to be working on our camping merit badges.

 

“All in favor of skipping reciting the Girl Scout Promise and singing the Hitler song instead, raise your hands.”

 

*   *   *

Department Of Yet Another Podcast Citation

The most recent episode of the People I (Mostly) Admire podcast – website description: “Steven Levitt, the unorthodox University of Chicago economist and co-author of the Freakonomics book series….tracks down other high achievers and asks questions that only he would think to ask….” – had me hooked with the opening:

“My guest today, John McWhorter, likes to stir things up….
He’s a linguistics professor at Columbia university, author of over a dozen books, and has emerged as one of America’s most prominent public intellectuals. He’s an opinionated centrist, and chances are, whatever your politics, you’ll love his views on some issues, and despise his stance on others.”
(intro to People I Mostly Admire, episode 72: “Leaving Black People in the Lurch” )

 

 

 

I was immediately intrigued by the host’s description of his guest: “an opinionated centrist.”  Not being fond of political labels (at least for moiself ), I don’t consider moiself  to be a centrist.  Rather, I approach issues as a “Does this make sense?-trist.” When some folks on The Far Left ® find out my liberal/religion-free/ flaming feminist viewpoints, they assume that I’ll tick off all their boxes on particular issues.  And when they find out that I do not, *they* get ticked off.

My intrigue-ears perked up for other reasons as well, including the fact that McWhorter is a linguistics professor.  Being a linguist, as in studying the cultural and cognitive development and application of languages, is one of my “if-I-were-to-do-it-all-over-again” professions.   [2]  Now, just because I maintain an interest in that area of study doesn’t mean that I have any current and/or particular skill in or aptitude for languages – far from it, as anyone who has heard me mangle the French language could attest to.  And while moiself  is on the subject I’d like to offer a shout-out to all you Parisian shopkeepers and restauranters who, despite the stereotype of the snooty French, were most patient and gracious with me when I was visiting your merveilluse ville and tried to order a pain au chocolat in every venue possible.

 

Let me guess, *elle demande* the entire tray, again?

 

Once again, I digress.

Back to the podcast opening.

Steve LEVITT:
“In your day job, you (McWhorter) are a linguist at Columbia University and you also moonlight as a commentator on American society, especially around issues of race. But I’d like to talk first about linguistics, because I suspect if we start on race, we’ll never make our way back to linguistics.”

Linguistics/ race – I wanted to hear it all.  Any author of a book called “Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter,” is all right by me. Then, after the first 15 minutes of linguistics talk, I was surprised by McWhorter’s choice in an answer to a certain question.

LEVITT:
So, English is obviously emerging as something of a world language, and that’s mostly for accidental, historical, social, political reasons. And in my very first episode of this podcast, I had Steve Pinker, the Harvard linguist, on. And I tried to get him to make a vote for what the best world language would be. I had no luck. He would not bite on that at all. Is that a question you’ll bite on?”

MCWHORTER:
” Hell yeah.
….If all of the world were going to use a single language, it should be not English….
Really, the language of the world should be Indonesian.”

 

 

Really.  He chose Indonesian.


MCWHORTER:
“…Not the way it’s written, but the way it’s typically spoken, where you have almost no suffixes, almost no prefixes. (Indonesian is) not a tonal language. It’s very low on throwing you with things like, what does ‘pick up’ mean?  You can pick up a disease; you can pick somebody up from school; speed is about picking up speed. Why deal with that? There’s very little of that. …. even though most people who don’t speak Indonesian would find it hard to learn just the words themselves….if you could pick up 500 of them, say 600 of them…the grammar would be very, very easy. You could make yourself understood. I would say it’s better. It’s easier for everybody — colloquial Indonesian would be the one.”

McWhorter’s quotes about the reasons why a language like Indonesian would be a better “world” language  [3]  made me think about Turkish, which I studied for a few days in an online course (until Putin’s aggressive assholery changed my travel plans   [4]  ).

Here are nine encouraging and refreshing observations I made during my brief foray into the Turkish language:

  1. Turkish is phonetic; thus, pronunciation is easy!
  2. Every letter in a word is pronounced!   [5]
  3. Each letter has only one sound!
  4. Two or more letters are never combined to make a new or different sound!
  5. Turkish contains no articles at all!
  6. It is also not a gendered language; nor is it tonal!
  7. There is no 7th observation!
  8. There are standard rules for making plurals!
  9. Word Order is set: Subject-Object-Verb. The verb is always at the end in written Turkish!    [6]

 

You’d spin with delight, too, if you spoke such a sensible language.

 

After twenty-five or so minutes of Fun With Words®,  podcast host Levitt ventured into topics where McWhorter’s opinions have made people who are prone to look for divergent poles line up into their default defensive positions…such as McWhorter’s book, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.

LEVITT:
“I was talking to a white friend of mine, someone who is deeply sympathetic to the anti-racist cause. And she said to me recently, ‘My daughter is friends with a Black girl in her nursery school class….and I’d like to invite that Black girl over to my house for a play date, but I’m afraid to because I don’t know the appropriate way to acknowledge my white privilege to the girl’s parents. And I don’t want to insult them by not acknowledging it.’

 To me, what a disaster – when kids can’t build friendships because parents are so paralyzed by fear of not doing the right thing.”

MCWHORTER:
“You know what? That woman is who I wrote Woke Racism for.
That is exactly what I mean. That is somebody whose heart is very much in the right place, but she’s so afraid of being called the dirtiest-name-other-than-pedophile in our current cultural vocabulary that she’s basically hamstrung.

After a while, it might be that you end up avoiding Black people because you don’t want to take a wrong step. And then you get accused of being a racist. And where does that get us?  To actually say, ‘What is the result of all this?’ is seen as somehow beside the point.

Rather, what’s considered important is smart people stating that racism still exists; racism is systemic. Now, what’s actually happening out on the ground, whether we’re improving Black lives by stating that, is considered subsidiary…..

And yet, that’s the situation that I saw us slipping into starting after the hideous murder of George Floyd. I saw us dealing with a kind of semaphore, where we say things and we say things and we say things, and what we’re really doing is fostering a kind of general guilt and engaging in a kind of passion play…. But the result is not anything that any civil rights leaders of the past would have recognized as meaningful. We need to get back to doing the real thing.”

 

Fine; you’re awake. Now, make the bed and start cleaning up the mess you left in the kitchen.

. 

LEVITT:
“I always ask my guests to give advice to my listeners. And I’m curious what advice you would give to young people trying to build a good life for themselves.
And would you give the same advice to a young white person and a young Black person?”

MCWHORTER (my emphases):
“… at this point, in the way our national dialogue goes, I would say this to kids of any race: Distrust your impulse to suppose that people who don’t think like you are either naive or evil.

It’s very easy to think that if they don’t think like you. It’s either they don’t have the facts that you have, or if they do have the facts that you have, there’s something sinister about them. They’ve got motives that they’re not quite letting onto.

And the sad thing is that these days, young people are being taught to think that way by an awful lot of grown-ups.

It’s an easy misimpression to fall into because we tend to be binary thinkers. But with any debate that’s uniquely challenging or frankly, interesting, about which you might argue, that’s different from decreeing that people are either stupid or bad. And that’s what a diverse and large society is all about. That’s what diversity of opinion is.”

Moiself  highly recommends that y’all’s selves listen to the entire interview, and pay attention to McWhorter’s insightful analysis re how “3rd wave anti-racism” (a term he borrows from the feminist movement) “is a religion.” It’s guaranteed to offend at least a few third wave anti-racists and religionists.  Now, that’s my kind of a podcast guest.

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Woke Politics Edition

Why were environmental activists protesting outside the elementary school?
That heard a rumor that the kids were singing, “Rain, rain, go away.”

What do you call a woke Star Wars droid?
R2-Me2

Did you hear about the laundromat manager who had her Facebook account cancelled?
FB monitors read that she told her customers to separate the whites from the colors.

One night I dreamt that I was a muffler…
I woke up exhausted.

 

“There’s woke jokes, and then there’s woke jokes.”

 

*   *   *

May you choose meaningful action over virtue-signalling;
May you have fond memories of your bawdy joke-telling, scout-meeting (or the equivalent) ignoring days;
May you enjoy singing the song about Hitler’s balls;    [7]

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Yes, this is the first footnote of this blog.

[2] Which would also include neurobiologist and astronaut.

[3] Better than, say, English, with its jumble of grammar, spelling, and pronunciation variants.

[4] We (MH and I) had planned a trip to Turkey in late May-early June.  Maybe…next year?

[5] With one exception – ğ, lengthens the sound of the vowel preceding it.

[6] Spoken Turkish allows for some flexibility.

[7] You know you’re going to hum it, at least once, if only to yourself.

The Stages I’m Not Following

April 22, 2022

Robyn Parnell Uncategorized , , , , , , , 3 Comments

 

Department Of Yet Another Content Warning ® …

….which I hope you will (eventually, if not now) ignore.

The following deals with grief.  Specifically, the intense and traumatic grief experienced by the sudden and/or unanticipated death of a loved one.

If you are presently not in a physical or emotional space to handle the subject, moiself hopes you’ll take care of yourself, and read this later.   [1]  The thing is, if you aren’t grieving such a loss right now, you will later on…and someone you know and love is dealing with this or will be, soon.  That is Life’s price of admission…and one particular grief survivor’s insights and observations could be – I’ll go so far as to say *will* be – of use to you.

The following excerpt blew me away (my emphases):

“The five stages of grief are ingrained in our cultural consciousness as the natural progression of emotions one experiences after the death of a loved one. However, it turns out that this model is not science-based, does not well describe most people’s experiences, and was never even meant to apply to the bereaved.

(“It’s Time to Let the Five Stages of Grief Die,”
McGill University, Office for Science and Society )

 

I had read about the questionable science behind The 5 Stages of Grief ® model, and had always had my doubts about its application.  But I had no idea that it was *never* meant to be applied to the bereaved – to people grieving the death of *other* people.

 

 

But wait – there’s more.

 “…many people, even professional psychologists, believe there is a right way and a wrong way to grieve, that there is an orderly and predictable pattern that everyone will go through, and if you don’t progress correctly, you are failing at grief. You must move through these stages completely, or you will never heal.

This is a lie.

Death and its aftermath is such a painful and disorienting time. I understand why people –  both the griever and those witnessing grief –  want some kind of road map, a clearly delineated set of steps or stages that will guarantee a successful end to the pain of grief. The truth is, grief is as individual as love: every life, every path, is unique. There is no predictable pattern, and no linear progression. Despite what many ‘experts’ say, there are no stages of grief.

In her later years, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote that she regretted writing the stages the way that she did, that people mistook them as being both linear and universal.”

( “The 5 Stages of Grief and Other Lies That Don’t Help Anyone”,
Megan Devine, author of “It’s OK That You’re Not OK.” )

 

 

“We’ve all heard about The 5 stages of Grief. But what happens when your experience doesn’t follow that model at all? Resilience researcher Lucy Hone began to question how we think about grief after a devastating loss in her own life. She shares the techniques she learned to help her cope with tragedy.”
( intro to the Hidden Brain Podcast, “Healing Your Heart” )

This is the podcast I want you to listen to, and Lucy Hone is the “one particular survivor” I referred to earlier in this post.

Lucy Hone, Ph. D., is an adjunct senior fellow at the University of Canterbury (NZ) and author of Resilient Grieving: Finding Strength and Embracing Life After a Loss that Changes Everything.  Hone has a master’s in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and a Ph.D. in well-being science/public health from AUT University.   [2]

 

 

The 5 Stages of Grief ® has become part of our culture’s how-to-grieve manual.  But the thing is, this list which was meant to be descriptive has now turned proscriptive. It’s originator, Swiss-American psychiatrist Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, *surmised* (not proved) these stages, when, as a psychiatry resident, she observed observations of people dealing with terminal illness – people who had advance knowledge of their impending death.

And yet, how many times have you heard about

* the family of a *recently* and *suddenly* deceased person   [3]   “going through the five stages of grief.”

* someone else, perhaps also grieving the same loss, being concerned that these same family members had not gone through the stages, or had skipped a few and were therefore stuck in their grief or somehow not doing it properly?

Something like this happened to the HB podcast guest.  Dr. Hone, ironically enough, a “resilience researcher,” had to rethink her and society’s approaches to grieving after the devastating loss of her beloved 12-year old daughter, Abi, who died after the car she was riding in (along with Abi’s best friend Emma and Emma’s mother) was t-boned by a driver who went through a stop sign at high speed.  [4]

Hone and HB host Shankar Vidantam talked about Hone’s drive to know what she could do to manage her grief.

HB host Shankar Vidantam:
“…the grief counselors and others told you that the next five years of your life were going to be consumed by grief; that you were a prime candidates for divorce, estrangement, and mental illness. You also heard about the 5 Stages of Grief.  What is the conventional wisdom about the 5 Stages of Grief, Lucy?”

Hone:
“…Like most people, I was kind of aware about the stages, and like most people I could probably name about three of them.  But when people started telling me about them – and boy, anyone who’s ever been bereaved will know that people tell you about them! – they expect you to go through them.

Pretty quickly I became frustrated with (the 5 Stages), because I didn’t feel anger and animosity towards the driver. I knew that that was a terrible mistake – that he didn’t do it intentionally.  And I wasn’t in denial – from the very first moment I remember thinking, ‘Okay, this is my job now, my mission is to survive this.’  And so they didn’t fit with my experience.

And the other aspect that quickly frustrated me (with the 5 stages) is that it’s reasonably helpful to be told that you might feel ___ (all of these different things), but actually, I don’t want to be told what I’m going to feel; I am desperate to know what I can do, to help us all adapt to this terrible loss.”

SV:
“I’m struck by the fact that at a certain point in your journey of grief over Abi’s death you were thinking like a researcher, or starting to ask yourself whether you yourself could be a research subject – that you’re’ studying yourself, observing yourself, like a scientist…”

Hone went on to say that yes, she did have a moment of being aware that she was both

 “…experiencing this devastating loss and curious about my experiences simultaneously…
I was doing this internally, observing my loss and my reaction to it, and then I thought, ‘Well, what I’m really curious about, is we have all these tools from resilient psychology, which have been shown to help people cope with potentially traumatic events.  How useful are they when they are brought to the context of bereavement?’ And so that’s been the question I’ve been really exploring, ever since Abi died.”

SV narration:
“Pondering this question gave (Hone) the space to analyze how her own mind was responding to  grief.  When she noticed something about how she was coping, she reserved judgement about what it meant.
When she engaged in ‘what-if’ scenarios – What if she hadn’t allowed Abi to drive with the other family? What if she hadn’t planned a beach vacation? – she noticed how those thoughts made her feel.  She paid attention to how she felt after getting exercise or a good night’s sleep.  In other words, she started behaving like a scientist.
She eventually discovered there were things that made her feel better, and things that made her feel worse. She came up with a series of techniques that gave her a measure of control over her grief.”

Hone:
“I distinctly remember standing in the kitchen thinking, ‘Seriously, Lucy, chose life over death. Don’t lose what you have over what you’ve lost.’ “

 

 

I wanted to print a transcript of the whole episode, it’s so good, but I’ll leave it to you to find that, or listen to the entire episode  (the link again: Healing your Heart.)  

Moiself will, instead, just list a few bullet point-style take aways:

* Hone’s ideas are not a glib substitutions for one series/stages or method over another.

* Models such as “The 5 Stages Of Grief, The Four Stages Of Recovery,” et. al., have been perpetuated because they are tidy.  But grief is not tidy; grief is messy and does not lend itself to finite lists.  According to one researcher, grief is “as individual as your fingerprints.”  What works for you as a strategy for handling your grief might not work for your spouse, your mother, your brother, your siblings – even as you are all grieving the same loss.

* “Taking a break” from grief is not avoidance, or denial.

* Learn the difference between grief reaction, over which we have little control, and grief response, which is loaded with options

* It isn’t *easy* –  to learn such distinctions and apply techniques to give you a measure of control over your grief – but is it possible.

 

*   *   *

 

*   *   *

Department Of Rest In Peace Face-Palming Laughter

Gilbert Gottfried, died last week. YOU FOOL!

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Stand Up For Comedians Edition

I was in Russia listening to a stand-up comedian making fun of Putin.
The jokes weren’t that good, but I liked the execution.

What kind of humor do quarantined comedians use?
Inside jokes.

Why do mountains make good comedians?
Because they’re hill areas…

A new standup comic told jokes about the unemployed.
Unfortunately, none of them worked.

What did the cannibal comedian say when he tried to eat the audience?
“Tough crowd.”

 

 

You got a long way to go, girl.

 

*   *   *

May you appreciate the differences between reactions and responses;
May you rethink your own “However Many Stages of Doing This Thing” lists;
May you treat yourself to some stress relief and watch Paul Lynde’s one-liners outtakes from Hollywood Squares;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Not because moiself  is the preeminent grief expert; rather, the people behind resources I am citing *are.*

[2] as per UC Berkely’s Greater Good Science Center (“Science-based Insights for a Meaningful Life”).

[3] Suddenly as in, via an accident or homicide or suicide – any death that was unexpected or not with foreknowledge of its inevitability, as in, with cancer or other diagnosed terminal illnesses.

[4] The two girls and the adult woman died; the driver who caused the accident survived.

The Dialog I’m Not Initiating

April 15, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), community, current events, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, politics, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , Comments Off on The Dialog I’m Not Initiating

Thanks to a friend, I got distracted.  This is not the blog I was intending to write.

Dateline: Tuesday.  Moiself  sees a link to a NYT article, posted by my retired   [1]  journalist friend, GR.

“After recent focus groups with Democratic-leaning voters on the economy; younger women on work, relationships and gender roles; and teenagers on school and their futures, we decided to talk to conservative men about how they see themselves and what they value. Most said they believed society is headed toward increased rule breaking and a “me, me, me” culture….”
introduction to These 8 Conservative Men Are Making No Apologies.
( NY Times, Opinion, “America in Focus” series.   [2]  )

Here is (part of) of GR’s introduction to the link:

“If we are ever going to bridge the divides in this country, I think it begins with understanding how others view themselves and the issues that confront all of us.”

 

 

I agree with that sentiment.  I also find it telling that the “bridging the divide” talk always seems be one-sided, as in, flowing from Left to Right. As moiself  commented to GR (before I’d followed the link to the article):

“Is there a conservative newspaper doing a focus group with
‘…8 liberal women making no apologies?’ “

My FB-comment conversation (with GR) continued after I started reading the article:

Moiself:
Thanks for posting this – I intend to read it all, but need a break right now, due to this part:

Tony (one of the focus group’s panelists):
“This country has become more feminized. It’s not the way it was when I was growing up. We started off talking about how the country has a weak image. They don’t call women the weaker sex for no reason. Men are necessary to maintain a vibrant society. And we’ve been feminized. No offense.”

(Focus group moderator)
“…who, if anyone, do you think views masculinity as a negative thing these days?

Christopher (another of the panelists):
“I support feminism, but I don’t support modern feminism. I think that modern feminism is focused on so-called toxic masculinity, and they are actually purveyors of men-bashing. And so I support femininity and feminism but not to the point where they’re looking to hoist themselves above men to try to make up for so-called patriarchy.”

 

Moiself:
Geeze, Tony.  “No offense” he says, when he’s just called women “weaker” and has associated the feminine with weakness.
And Christopher says he “supports” feminism, but not “modern” feminism.
Maybe he prefers feminists of the 19th century, the Seneca Falls Convention era, where they had to fight for even the right to vote – which could only be granted to them by men?
I remember hearing in the late 60s-70s the same rhetoric, from men who claimed to “support” women and women’s rights but not those “man-hating women’s libbers….” With “support” like that, who needs equal opportunity enshrined in law? 

While I appreciate the idea (and ideals) behind the America in Focus series, this particular one disheartened and frustrated me.  Isn’t dialog supposed to be uplifting?

 

 

Those 8 Conservative Men ®  may be making no apologies, but many of them are also  making no sense. Take this shining example, when the conversation seemed dominated by the panelists’ complaints about (what they saw as) the changing definition and devaluation of masculinity.  Running with the theme, the moderator asked, “Who, if anyone, do you think views masculinity as a negative thing these days?”

Danny (another panelist):
“Look at fashion. Look at the newer generation of how people dress, how men dress. There’s men, and there’s women, and there’s masculinity, and femininity. And there’s no reason to destroy one in order to make the other one better. I’m not trying to get into a negative men-versus-women thing, but I’m seeing masculinity under attack. And I’m seeing men wearing tight skinny jeans, with no socks and velvet shoes. And it’s cool to wear pink. I don’t mind wearing pink. It’s a cool color. And I’m not saying colors belong with a certain gender. It’s so funny — this is what we were talking about earlier: Every time you speak, you don’t feel comfortable enough to say what’s on your mind, where you have to almost give a disclaimer. I have no problem with pink. But when we go out to a club or a dinner or dancing, you see some of the younger generation wearing very feminine clothes, blatantly feminine clothes — so much so that we are almost trying to portray masculinity as negative.”

 

 

I have no problem with pink, says the man who goes on to reveal that he definitely has a problem with pink (or, at least, with men wearing pink), by mentioning that thing he doesn’t have a problem with twice more.

 

I am not thinking of elephants.  Nope; no elephants here. No elephants in my brain, no sirrrreeeee.

 

Danny, like some of the others in the group, does make several points moiself  finds especially valid (and have addressed in this space many times), such as how labels and epithets (racist, sexist, homo-and other “phobics”) are so easily used by people, and once someone labels you, how do you refute it?  Danny, a realtor, tells the story of when he was the president of a homeowner’s association board in his community, and

“…an Asian woman got into an argument with us. When I say ‘us,’ I mean the whole board. That night, she went and wrote a review on my business page saying that I’m a racist. My parents are Lebanese. I was beaten up every day when I was a kid because I’m Arabic….I’m not a racist….She wrote a nasty review, and Google won’t take it down, even though she wasn’t a client of mine. She’d never bought a house from me. She never did business with me, but she said that I’m a racist. That’s what’s happening today. And that never happened 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. And you know what’s worse? You can’t stop it.”

Danny and others in the group also directly or obliquely referred to about how our language police culture (my term; not theirs) stifles expression and makes assumptions, and seemingly pays more attention to how you say something rather than what you are trying to say:

“…And I’m not saying colors belong with a certain gender. It’s so funny — this is what we were talking about earlier: Every time you speak, you don’t feel comfortable enough to say what’s on your mind, where you have to almost give a disclaimer. “

But then Danny negates his disclaimer, with further statements which indicate he really does think certain colors and certain styles belong with certain genders.  His comment about how so much of the younger generation is wearing “feminine clothes” – uh, maybe because half of any generation is composed of females?  But his usage of “the younger generation” indicates he’s talking about the younger generation of *males,* who by wearing “blatantly feminine” clothes” are “… trying to portray masculinity as negative.”

Oh Danny boy, the pipes the pipes are calling I just don’t get it.  Unless there is a dude wearing a (pink, I bet) shirt with lettering which proclaims, “Masculinity sucks,” I don’t see how a choice in clothing portrays masculinity, or any “inity,” as negative. 

 

Six out of six Monty Python Girly Men agree.

 

(Focus group Moderator):
“How many of you think men have it harder than women these days?”
[group members Krupal and Danny raise their hands.]

Krupal:
“It’s like, you’re a woman, you’re given a trophy. If a guy does something, it’s not a big deal. If girls do the same thing, it’s like, you go! Girl power! I think her gender plays a bigger role, and it gives her more advantage these days — be it career or anything.”

(Christopher, a group member who didn’t raise his hand,
although IMO his comment indicates that he should have):
“I think that women have it a lot easier than men these days. What it feels like is that society is trying to make up for the times that women were oppressed, and it seems like it’s kind of going overboard.”

Ah, gee.  Don’t let your gender pity party get in the way of reality, Conservative Guys Sans Apologies. Their statements of woe-is-me-as-a-man, without any attempt to cite data supporting their grievances, was as tiring to read as it was frustrating – and alarming – to consider.  They really think that – that being a woman is an Advantage ® ?

 

 

Yo, Krupal: here is just a sampling of the *advantages* being a woman gets a woman, “be it career or anything.”

Career

* According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, in 2020, women’s annual earnings were 82.3% of men’s, and the gap is even wider for many women of color.
* Women earn less than men in nearly all occupations.
* Women earn less than their same race and ethnicity counterpart at every level of educational attainment
* Educational attainment is not enough to close gender earnings gaps. In fact, most women with advanced degrees earn less than white men, on average, with only a bachelor’s degree.

(“Facts About the State of the Gender Pay Gap,” US Dept. of Labor)

 

 

Anything

* Women still face significant obstacles when it comes to accessing the credit necessary to build and expand their businesses. Multiple studies indicate that women face a gap when it comes to getting funding. Though women business owners apply at similar rates to men, only 39% of women-owned businesses had a conventional bank loan…compared with 52% of male-owned businesses that received conventional bank loans.
* Gender discrimination persists, in the form of both gender stereotypes and unconscious gender bias. “What If,” the recent report on the gender credit gap, cites multiple studies between the 1980s through the present, indicating the presence of stereotypes that negatively affect women when trying to advance in the workplace, or when seeking traditional loans, or venture capital investment for their businesses.
( “Women and the Future of the Gender Credit Gap” )

 

* Although single women have lower average annual incomes, they are better at paying their mortgages, default less and usually make larger down payments than their male counterparts…. (yet) On average, women pay more for a mortgage through higher interest rate terms than male borrowers.
(“The Gender Gap: Women As Mortgage Consumers,” NWRB )

 

* Gender bias persists in health care…. One in five women say they have felt that a health care provider has ignored or dismissed their symptoms, and 17% say they feel they have been treated differently because of their gender—compared with 14% and 6% of men, respectively.
* Studies show that women’s perceptions of gender bias are correct. Compared with male patients, women who present with the same condition may not receive the same evidence-based care. In several key areas, such as cardiac care and pain management, women may get different treatment, leading to poorer outcomes.
(“Recognizing, Addressing Unintended Gender Bias in Patient Care,”
 Duke Health/Referring Physicians )

 

* …gender in tech has often been governed by a set of interlocking, and surprisingly fine-grained, sorting systems…. women were less likely to be promoted than men, and when …promoted, it was frequently into jobs that seemed to separate them further from the core business of the company, and toward ‘soft’ and ‘people skills.’
* When it comes to who gets promoted how in Silicon Valley…there’s still an assumption that ‘anybody can be a manager, but not everybody can be an engineer.’… female tech workers get frequently shunted onto management tracks…or even into HR, even though they have the same degrees and training as their male engineer colleagues.
(“How Sexism is Coded into the Tech Industry.” The Nation, 4-26-21)

 

“May I give my advantage back now?”

* Gender-based price discrimination…when one gender is charged a different price than another gender for identical goods or services…negatively affects women more often than men…. Gender-based pricing exists in many industries, including insurance, dry cleaning, hair, clothing, personal care products.,,,
* Consumption taxes on certain products but not others have also been viewed a form of gender-based price disparity. For example, in the USA, Australia, and the UK, tampons are often subjected to a consumption tax, while related products such as condoms, lubricant, and several other medical items are exempt from the tax.
( “Gender-based price discrimination in the United States,” Wikiwand )

 

* An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are male.
* Around the world, at least 1 woman in 3 has been beaten, coerced into sex, or abused in her lifetime. Most often the abuser is a member of her own family or is her partner.
(“Sexualized Violence Statistics,” CalPoly Humboldt)

 

I want my gawddamn trophy.

 

Read it (the transcript of the focus discussion) y’alls selves, and draw your own conclusions.  [3]   My summary: these eight conservative men have noticed that Others are taking steps up the power ladder, and thus they  [4]  don’t feel in charge anymore.  They make some valid points about language police/cancel culture (that women and liberals also experience, not just male conservatives).  But, seemingly without any self-awareness as to their male privilege (a term that would probably have their manly orbs crawling home to daddy, howling with men-are-being-cancelled! outrage), they see the writing on the wall… and instead of stopping to read it or consider what spurred the writing, they’re just concerned about protecting their own rung on a rickety, rusting ladder.

 

 

 

And this concern with their own status comes from a group that kept saying, without any irony moiself  could detect, that one of the things wrong with our culture today is

“We are the most selfish, self-centered, entitled culture. Everything is me, me, me.”

I kept waiting to read at least one of them commenting on how sexism and/or racism is a problem in the USA today.  Nope.  [5]

 

*   *   *

Department Of And One More Thing, Guys

“Toxic masculinity” is a phrase several men in the focus group identified as being irritating to them.  Although the expression may be relatively new, what it describes – the personal and societal repercussions of living in patriarchal systems – has been around for a long time.  Wake up and smell the (ED, medically enhanced) coffee, dudes:  Patriarchy is also poisonous to the very people it enshrines in towers of power.

” ‘Toxic masculinity’ doesn’t mean that men are toxic or that masculinity is de facto toxic. Rather, it means that extreme forms of traits traditionally associated with masculinity, like aggression and stoicism, are toxic. Right-wingers, however, like to pretend the phrase is an attack on men because it’s a quick way of derailing a conversation about rigid gender norms, and allows them to pretend that feminism is some sort of plot against men….
We hurt our boys when we teach them that being a man means suppressing your emotions and treating women as an inferior species, to be dominated and controlled. And toxic masculinity doesn’t just hurt men, it kills them. In America, for example, men are 3.5 times more likely to die from suicide than women – a phenomenon many experts attribute, in part, to the fact that men are told they shouldn’t express emotion or admit that they feel vulnerable, and therefore are less likely to seek professional help. “
(“Toxic masculinity doesn’t hurt men – it kills them,”
The Guardian 6-1-19)

Patriarchy grants numerous benefits to men as a group, and imbues men with a sense of entitlement, (implicitly, or overtly in some cultures  [6] ) as The Favored Gender.   And that preference comes with a steep price, with a statistic that is worth repeating, and more.

“Men are 3.5 times more likely to die by suicide than women…. They have more academic challenges and receive harsher punishments in school settings. They’re the victims of 77 percent of homicides (and they commit 90 percent of them).
One cause for this consortium of maladies, the America Psychological Association’s Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men    [7] suggests…is ‘Traditional masculinity’ itself — the term refers to a Western concept of manliness that relies — and sometimes over-relies — on stoicism, dominance, aggression and competitiveness.
‘Everybody has beliefs about how men should behave…We found incredible evidence that the extent to which men strongly endorse those beliefs, it’s strongly associated with negative outcomes.’ The more men cling to rigid views of masculinity, the more likely they are to be depressed, or disdainful, or lonely.”
( “How ‘traditional masculinity’ hurts the men who believe in it most,”
The Washington Post, 1-13-19 )

 

 

Patriarchy bestows privileges upon men as men, but profoundly harms individual men in many ways, including:

* Patriarchy pressures men to eschew distinctiveness in favor of fitting into preconceived boxes – to conform to a constricted definition of masculinity, under which it is not a given quality. You are not masculine simply by virtue of being male; your masculinity must continually be proved and reinforced, by competing with other men,  [8]  and engaging in risk-taking behavior – the latter of which also discourages or discounts seeking help and engaging in health-preserving behavior.  Translation: Men are less likely to go to the doctor for physical ailments, or seek counselling support for mental health issues, and are more likely to stop taking medication for chronic or life-threatening illnesses than are women.

“Numerous studies have shown that men who adhere strongly to patriarchal ideals of masculinity are more likely to endorse and use violence against both women and gay men—those who are seen as ‘feminized’ and ‘lesser‘.”
…patriarchy upholds norms and behaviours that are neither attainable, nor desirable, and in the process we all suffer.
( “How Patriarchy Hurts Men, Too,” nextgenmen 1-13-21 )

C’mon, guys, it’s not “men-bashing women” who are after you.  Y’all’s hurting yourselves.

 

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Toxic Masculinity Edition

Why was #45 so insecure about his masculinity?
He was diagnosed with electile dysfunction.

Dude, if  you have to have sideburns to prove your masculinity
…then you need to grow a pair.

Why are weeaboos   [9]   the opposite of the patriarchy?
Because instead of treating women like objects, they treat objects like women.

What kind of bread does the patriarchy serve at their dinner parties?
Traditional gender rolls.

 

It’s good to be king.

*   *   *

May you never have reason to fear your “inity” is threatened;
May you try to initiative and maintain dialog, no matter how face-palming it can be;
May you not deny thinking of elephants when you are soooooo,thinking of elephants;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Ah, but do journalists ever really retire?  Not the good ones, like GR.

[2] In the America in Focus series, NYTimes editors asked Americans to share their views on life, society, politics and more.

[3] The transcript in the article is excerpted; there is also an audio tape of the entire discussion.

[4] Other people who are not conservative men.

[5] Not even the three black men on the panel, one of which mentioned being called Sambo (often a substitute for “Uncle Tom”) or the equivalent at some point in their life.

[6] Do an internet search for the phenomenon of “son preference” across cultures, for a depressing eye-opener.

[7] APA’s inaugural Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men was developed over 13 years using four decades of research.

[8] Arguably, some would say – *certainly, *I would say – you can put “engaging in warfare” in that category.  Men’s deaths in combat far outweigh those of women…although, since men start the overwhelming majority or wars and either volunteer themselves to participate in it (and usually prohibit women from “combat” roles), or conscript their fellow men, that seems somewhat “fair,” or at least logical.  However, in war, civilian casualties always outnumber military casualties…and who, during wartime, are the civilians?  The vaunted “women and children” whom the fighting men say they are protecting.

[9] Weeaboo – a (usually derogatory) slang term for a Western person who is obsessed with Japanese culture, especially anime.

The Russians I’m Not Absolving

April 8, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, books & magazines, current events, extended family, foodie, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, nature, Oregon, politics, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Department Of Scapegoating

Moiself  would like nothing better than to wake up tomorrow morning to the news that Vladimir Putin has

* kicked the KGB bucket
* cashed in his commie chips
* bit the Chernoyl dust,
* bought the fascist farm,
* given up the glasnost ghost
* won his last rabid dog lookalike ® contest…

 

 

 

you know – died.  Whether through “natural” means or otherwise; hey, I’m not picky.

Still, it doesn’t seem…wise…or right…or fair…or historically accurate, to blame Russia’s assault against Ukraine solely on that festering turd of a genocidal despot one leader.

Russia is a big ass country.  Even with an oligarchy-stained kleptocracy of a dictatorship masquerading as a federal republic, moiself  doesn’t think the P-boy can do what he’s doing unless he’s got a whole lotta other Russians – if not the majority – on his side.

This is the 21st century, and Russia is not North Korea.  In “First World” countries whose people have access to First World technologies (internet; cellphones) is impossible to completely control the narrative; it is impossible to make the majority of the Russian populace believe that Ukrainians are “neo-Nazis”,  or the other delusional justifications the P-pants-boy offers for invading a sovereign country, unless there are those who, for whatever reasons, want to believe such bizarre, totally unsubstantiated falsehoods.

Are Russians who support their country’s actions also victims (of P-face’s propaganda), as I have heard more than one person surmise,?  Or are they collaborators?  I’m not sure it matters, at this point.  Not to the dead Ukrainians, that’s for sure.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Thanks For The Imagery

Dateline: Saturday, March 26; circa 7:45 am; morning walk; listening to the People I Mostly Admire podcast’s latest episode:  No One Can Resist A Jolly, Happy Pig.  Host Steven Levitt is interviewing naturalist and author Sy Montgomery, who gets the following introduction on the PIMA website:

My guest today is bestselling author and naturalist Sy Montgomery. The Boston Globe describes her as “part Indiana Jones and part Emily Dickinson.” Her best-known book is The Soul of an Octopus, which was a finalist for the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2015. But she’s written about everything from tarantulas to hyenas to hummingbirds to pink dolphins. And as far as I can tell, she’s fallen in love with every one of them.

Levitt asks Montgomery how she got to where she is, in her profession – combining her two loves, of journalism and animals. Montgomery talks about visiting various people she knows who devote their lives to studying some obscure species, including a friend who is currently studying “the southern hairy-nosed wombat”…

…which caused moiself  to actually speak the following picture’s caption aloud.  To moiself, but ALOUD.

 

“Hey, Buford, y’all going to the barn dance tonight?”

*    *   *

Department Of Dietary Motivations

Back to the above-referenced podcast: Montgomery’s years of study of numerous animal species has caused her to refer to these animals as “people” (in aggregate) or “somebody” in particular. She explains her vocabulary choice:  not only do many of the scientists who study these animals attribute consciousness and emotion to them, but scientists who study animal brains consistently find the same or remarkably similar neurotransmitters and hormones that, in primates such as our homo sapiens selves, are responsible for the production and transmission of emotions.

 

 

Montgomery and Levitt had an interesting back-and-forth about such discoveries and attributions.  (Excerpts from their discussion; my emphases.)

LEVITT:
Now, I’m no expert on ethology, which is the study of animal behavior, but I suspect that the scholars in that area might be upset by your books….  I’m sure they would consider it a no-no to anthropomorphize animals, but that’s not even exactly what you do. You speculate about the unique ways each creature might experience the world. Am I right that some scientists complain that you go too far in that direction?

MONTGOMERY:
It’s not so much the scientists, but sometimes it’s the philosophers because they want humans to be the top of everything. Now, it is true that in science they use different words than I would use. Of course, in their scientific journals, they have different readers than I’m going to have, but things have changed a bit since, for instance, Jane Goodall first published her findings about tool use in chimps. No one wanted to publish that groundbreaking paper because she named her chimps instead of numbering them.

LEVITT:
Woah. Uh-huh.

MONTGOMERY:
Now things have changed…. There actually is a field of study that’s looking into animal personalities. I went on a personality survey with some of the top octopus researchers in the world…The person who headed that study…was the one who pointed out to me that if we fail to talk about emotions in animals, we are overlooking a central fact of neurobiology. And that is that every animal that has ever been studied, when you try to look for the hormones or neurotransmitters responsible for all of our feelings, like joy and fear, like stress and love, we find the exact same neurotransmitters. Even in taxa as different from ourselves, as octopuses, from whom we have been separated for half a billion years of evolution.

 

 

LEVITT:
The scientific, conventional wisdom for decades, hundreds of years, insisted that humans were unique on so many dimensions, like consciousness, the use of tools, ability to problem solve. Do you have a take on how these past scientists just got things completely wrong?

MONTGOMERY:
Yeah. I think it’s human supremacy, just like white supremacy. We wanted to be at the top, which would justify our exploitation of everybody else….

LEVITT:
Here’s something I strongly suspect will happen. When people look back in a hundred or 200 years, they will be shocked and dismayed at the cruelty that our society subjects animals to with factory farming. Do you agree?

MONTGOMERY:
A hundred percent. We will be appalled. And that’s why I became vegetarian years ago. Now there are farms that raise animals and slaughter animals in a more humane way, but I’m still delighted that I’m not eating them.

LEVITT:
You made a really powerful case for the wonder of pigs. Do you think for people whose goal it is get away from factory farming that maybe the strategy they should be taking is trying to teach people about the wonderful personality that pigs have?

MONTGOMERY:
Oh, I have gotten so many letters from people telling me that my book was the end of their bacon. And also, after Soul of an Octopus, many people wrote and said, “You know what? I used to love to eat octopus. I don’t eat it anymore.”

I love food and I love making food, but the taste of that item is on your tongue for less than a minute before you swallow something else. And for someone to lose their life for a taste on your tongue, that just seems like an enormous waste when there’s so many other delicious and nourishing things that we could have and not take away somebody’s life, somebody who thinks and feels and knows.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Inquiring Minds Want To Know

“She holds a PhD in neuroscience, but I couldn’t find whether she ever actually worked as a neuroscientist. It’s obvious that her understanding of ‘strong science’ doesn’t mean what she thinks it means. I doubt if she reads Science-Based Medicine or understands the principles we go by.”
(  Harriet Hall, MD aka “The SkepDoc”   [1]  )

 

 

Any claim that has the word “actually” in it must be true.

 

Moiself  saw a commercial the other day in which Mayim Bialik, the child actor turned adult actor turned part-time Jeopardy host,  has apparently now become a vitamin supplement shill. The ad was for Neuriva-Plus, a supplement which, its manufacturers claim, can make you smarter by increasing brain levels of “brain-derived neurotrophic factor” (BDNF, and shame on you for thinking that the acronym refers to some kind of S & M practice).

Why should you trust the celebrity who is promoting such a product?  Well, you silly goose, because the ad begins thusly:

“I’m Mayim Bialik, and I love brains.  It’s why I became a neuroscientist.”

 

 

Uh, yes.  Several spring to mind. 

Elsewhere Bialik has also claimed:

“Neuriva Plus is backed by strong science — yes, I checked it myself —
and it combines two clinically tested ingredients that help support six key indicators of brain health.”

Not only does Bialik claim to be a neuroscientist, in another, longer Neuriva ad she describes herself as, “America’s favorite neuroscientist” 

 

 

Ooooooookaaaaaaay.

Bialik went to college, studied neuroscience at UCLA, took a break from studies to return to acting, returned to school to earn her Doctor of Philosophy degree in neuroscience from UCLA, had two children, then went back to acting.   [2]  But nowhere in her (admittedly impressive) resumé can I find any reference to her working in the field of neuroscience.

I’m not concerned about how many reputable sources, including Psychology Today, have called the product Bialik is endorsing “Neuriva nonsense” and “just another snake oil.”   [3]    Moiself assumed that from the get-go.

 

 

Rather, I’m curious about the validity of her claim to be a “neuroscientist” when she doesn’t appear to be doing neuroscience.  She studied neuroscience; I get that.  But she’s not doing neuroscience.

I’m wondering what actual (ahem) neuroscientists might think. Sam Harris? Brenda Milner? Any other neuroscientists care to weigh in on this?

If you go to law school, get your law degree ( a J.D. in the USA ), then become a carpenter – i.e., for whatever reasons you decide you want to earn a living crafting furniture and do not practice law, either with a firm or in a partnership or by “hanging out your shingle” (solo practice) – is it accurate to say about yourself,

“I actually am a lawyer.”

 

“Don’t blame this one on me.  You want snake oil?  I’ll show you some snake oil.”

 

*   *   *

Punz For The Day
Snake Oil Edition

Which snakes are best at mathematics?
Adders.

I got mugged by a cobra when I was walking through the park.
I told the police I couldn’t recognize it in a lineup, as it was wearing a hood.

Why don’t rattlesnakes drink coffee, or any caffeinated beverages?
Because it makes them viperactive.     [4]

What do you call a snake that builds houses?
A boa constructor.

 

*   *   *

May you never feel compelled to refer to yourself as an “actual” anything;
May you have fun imagining a southern hairy-nosed wombat;
May you be delighted by those creatures which you choose not to eat;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Hall is a retired family physician who researches and writes about pseudoscience and questionable medical practices.

[2] as per her Wikipedia bio.  

[3] “Mayim Bialik’s Neuriva Commercials Make Questionable Claims,” Science-based Medicine, 7-6-21

[4] No snake footnotes here.

The April Fool’s Joke No One Was Playing

April 1, 2022

Robyn Parnell annoyances, category-free rants, community, family life, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of lawyers and/or doctors, movies, Oregon, politics, science, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The April Fool’s Joke No One Was Playing

Content warning: Despite the date, and one or two moments of comic relief,  [1]   this is probably the most serious and personal blog post I have written.  No foolin.’

*   *   *

Department Of Worst April Fool’s Day Ever

The following took place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away – twenty-one years ago today, April 1, 2001. Background info: MH and I and our offspring, K and Belle, were members of a local church.  [2]   Within the past seven weeks we’d celebrated K’s eighth birthday, and Belle’s fifth.

*   *   *

At approximately 12:20pm, Sunday, April 1, 2001, MH and I were in the ___ (church name)  Fellowship Hall’s kitchen, doing cleanup after coffee hour.  K and Belle were playing with other children outside, in the church’s courtyard.  Belle found a hypodermic syringe (“A shiny toy,” as she later described it to me) on the grass under the bushes next to a play-shed in the courtyard.  She picked up the syringe, which was capped, but the syringe’s needle — which was sticking out at an angle from under the side of the cap — poked her in her right thumb.  She dropped the syringe and walked away.

K had seen Belle pick up something and then quickly drop it.  He went over to where she had been, saw the syringe, and picked it up. He intended to take it upstairs to MH and I, to show us what Belle had touched…then he also got stuck by the needle (in his left thumb) when he picked up the syringe.

K came into the kitchen, holding the syringe.  He told us that he’d found “this thing on the grass” and that he’d accidentally stuck himself with it. Before K had finished his sentence MH whisked the syringe from K, and recapped it (K said he took the cap off *after* the needle stuck him, as he wanted us to see exactly what it was that had stuck him, but that the syringe had the cap ON when he picked it up).

I rushed K to the sink, quickly but thoroughly washed his thumb, and told MH to get Belle and meet us at the hospital.  We had our two cars with us; I wrapped the syringe in several paper towels and ran down the back stairs of the hall with K in tow, telling him that we were going to the Tuality Hospital ER (which is less than half a mile from the church).

At this time MH and I did *not* know that Belle had also – and first – been stuck by that same syringe’s needle.

MH found Belle standing in the entrance to the Fellowship Hall, crying and holding her thumb, which was bleeding.  MH asked another child, who was lying on a couch in the entrance, what was going on.   The kid glanced at Belle and casually replied, “Oh, she cut herself.”   MH asked Belle what happened; she said that “a knife” she found in the courtyard had cut her finger.

I’d parked on the street by the entrance to the Fellowship Hall. Just as I was about to pull away from the curb MH ran to my car, pounded on the window, opened the door and practically threw Belle in the back seat, next to K.  MH told me about Belle’s thumb as he strapped Belle into her car seat; we tried to get more out of her, but she was very upset.  She didn’t want to say that it was the needle which had cut her, but K said that it was, and then Belle confirmed this.

All of this — from the moment K came up to the kitchen with the syringe to MH running with Belle to the car — took place in less than two minutes.  I squeezed Belle’s thumb to get more blood out, gave her a tissue to hold over her thumb, and drove to the ER, with MH arriving in our other car about four minutes after the kids and I did.

The bad news:

…was what had happened.  Of particular concern was the fact that the syringe was from an “unknown source,” which is hospital jargon for, “We don’t have the syringe’s user to test.”  However, as the hospital personnel  [3]   – and our own instincts and experience told us – as far as what the syringe had been used for, we should assume the worst.  Translation: the syringe had been used to inject a person or persons with illegal drugs; it had not been left there by a diabetic who on the spur of the moment decided to adjust his blood sugar/insulin ratio in our church’s courtyard’s bushes. (Coincidentally, earlier that morning I’d been told by the church groundskeeper that the previous day, members of our church had done a cleanup of the church grounds, removing beer cans and trash from under and around the bushes in the courtyard, where the groundskeeper had occasionally found “vagrants and street people partying.”)

Hospital personnel told us the syringe was likely used to inject its user(s) with a certain kind of heroin (“Mexican brown”) and/or methamphetamine, which, for “street users,” were the injectable drugs of choice both the hospital and the police were seeing at that time.  Although we brought the syringe with us (and could detect a micro-microscopic drop of fluid inside of it), we were told that there was nothing the hospital could test it for.  In fact, it was hospital policy not to test it, for among other reasons, the false reassurance of any false negative results (which they would likely get, as there was no way to determine how long the syringe had been there).

The relatively good (or at least, less bad) news:

-Both kids’ immunizations were up to date, including for Hepatitis B.

-Although there were no vaccinations for Hepatitis C and the other rare strains (D, E, F), risk of transmission for those infections, in that kind of possible exposure, were negligible…  Also, those strains of hepatitis were rarely seen in Oregon at that time (Hepatitis A is not transmitted via needle sticks).

-The syringe had a small gauge needle; thus, the possibility of a significant “viral load” transmission was small.

-HIV, the big fear factor at the time, is a very fragile virus.  Despite its many mutations it can survive only a few hours (if that) outside a host body.

The children were seen by P.A. ____, who examined them and then spoke with us about what happened.  Over the next three-plus hours, the P.A. consulted via telephone with Drs. E___ and L___ at Emmanuel Hospital’s Infectious Disease and Pediatrics Infectious Disease departments, with our pediatrician’s on call group, and with other physicians at the CDC.  [4]

We were told (by the P.A. and a Tuality ER physician) that HIV prophylaxis treatment was something we should consider, for both K and Belle.  We did, and decided against it, with the following information in mind:

– None of the doctors consulted would strongly recommend that we start either K or Belle on prophylactic treatment for possible HIV exposure, given the parameters of the particular accident/incident, nor was such treatment the recommended protocol for that kind of possible exposure.

– MMR (Morbidity & Mortality Report) statistics showed no transmission of disease had been recorded to have occurred in “this kind of injury,” in Oregon.

– Risk of transmission of HIV was estimated to be less than 1%; risk of side effects from AZT or other prophylactic HIV treatments definitely exceeded 1%.

K and Belle had blood drawn at the hospital for baseline HIV and Hepatitis titers, and we were given scripts to have the tests repeated at intervals of two, four, and six months.  The P.A. suggested, for our own peace of mine, that we do another test at twelve months (although that was not the official recommendation).

******************************

Department Of The Aftermath

At one point, sitting in the ER exam room with MH and the kids, I remembered noting the date and thinking, “If only this were an April Fool’s joke….”

The above was the Dragnet (“Just the facts, ma’am”) version of the incident, which I sent to family, and wrote for our own records.  I left out the emotions experienced by K, Belle, MH, and myself, which you can probably imagine (and which took me months to forget).

 

 

We were at that ER for hours.  We waited, while the P.A. consulted with various specialists and/or waited for them to return his calls and periodically came into the exam room we occupied, to update us.  All the adults were (trying to be) calm.  The ER seemed understaffed, to me (a hospital staff member later told me it was unexpectedly busy “for a Sunday afternoon”).  Even so and speaking of the afternoon, I wish one of the staff would have thought to offer our kids some food.  It was lunch time when the accident happened, and a little after 4 pm when we got out of there.  MH and I were too adrenalized to be hungry and, in our state of shock and with possible scenarios and outcomes running through our minds, we forgot that the kids, of course, were hungry  [5] ). I finally had the presence of mind to realize this, and got someone to bring them some sugary drinks, which made them both happy.

Waiting, waiting, waiting….  We bummed drawing supplies (paper and pens) from a nurse, to keep the kids amused or at least distracted, while hospital staff checked with one another and called various experts.  We shut the door to the exam room we were in and talked loudly to the kids when an accident victim with a fractured femur was brought into the ER (we were mostly successful in muffling the victim’s cries of pain, which echoed down the ER hallway).

MH’s cousin is a pediatrician and her husband an epidemiologist; MH used some of the waiting time to call her (she lived on the East coast).  She was very reassuring.  She told us that, to her knowledge and after checking her sources, there were no cases of someone “sero-converting” – i.e., going from a negative HIV test to a positive – after having “that kind” of accident (being stuck with a needle which had likely been used and discarded several hours before the stick-accident).

Okay; yes; this is good.   But, if this is common knowledge, why is this taking so long?
Why all the consults – are they preparing detailed information for us,
for a prognosis we don’t want to hear?

We had plenty of time, sitting/waiting/pacing in that exam room, to imagine the worst.  I had worked for nine years in the women’s reproductive health care field but been away from the medical world for almost as many years and hadn’t kept up with “things.”  HIV, despite its ability to mutate rapidly, was – or had been – a very fragile virus. Perhaps new strains had developed, which I was unaware of – new mutations which could survive hours outside a host body? I thought that unlikely, thus; actually, my main concern was not HIV.

I was more troubled to think that the kids might have been infected by one of the new strains of hepatitis that seemed to be cropping up left and right. When I’d worked at Planned Parenthood, just before MH and I moved up to Oregon, I’d had a needle stick accident, [6]  and had to go through the routines of initial HIV/hepatitis blood tests, getting the Hep B vaccine series,   [7]   then follow-up HIV and hepatitis tests at two, four, and six month intervals.

Meanwhile, back in the ER….  Finally, a little before 4 pm, the ER staff attending to our case had documented it to their satisfaction. We needed the kids to each have their blood drawn for the first round of tests, and then we could go home.  MH and I and the hospital personnel tried to be as straightforward – and as nonchalant – with the kids as possible.  “Everything is going to be all right, we just have to do one test (which…er, yeah…will involve another needle stick)….”

K tried to be brave.  He was old enough that we could explain the hospital procedures to him, how they’d need to draw a small amount of blood for a test.  Did he think he could cooperate?  His lower lip trembled as he nodded yes.  He sat in my lap, I hugged him, and he hid his head under my arm when they drew his blood sample.  For each of the subsequent, follow-up blood draws (at two, four and six months after the incident), K got better at handling the needle poke (he even watched the last one, instead of turning his head to the side!).

Belle’s reaction was…almost feral.

What a difference three years makes, especially for younger children, in terms of experience and comprehension. Looking back, I realize that Belle was also being brave, in a different way – in defense of herself.  She did not understand why she had essentially been held captive for hours; she did not understand the need for the tests the adults were trying to explain to her.  She understood that she had already been injured by one needle, and she was determined not to let that happen again.

The hospital personnel were kind and patient with her, but despite their assurances that they would use the tiniest needle possible (“The size we use on preemies,” a nurse told me) Belle became unhinged. Even her beloved daddy could not get her to cooperate, nor could he restrain her.  Finally, in order to safely draw her blood, the hospital staff put her in what I can only describe as a full body straitjacket.  It was a device/garment I’d never seen before,   [8]   and it provided me with one brief moment of levity in that dreary afternoon (I had to leave the exam room for a moment, to stifle my giggles).

The follow-up blood draws were, for Belle, not much better (although full body restraints were not necessary).  For years after that ER visit Belle maintained a visceral fear of needles.  Routine vaccinations were…stressful, to put it mildly, for Belle, her parents, and her pediatrician.

Despite Belle’s fear of needles (which had not been present before the trip to the ER), neither she nor K seemed to carry any long-term trauma from the needle stick accident.  They also barely displayed any short-term distress.  By the morning after they seemed to have accepted what the adults had told them (it was an accident; everything is going to be fine), and it was almost as if the accident hadn’t happened.

The night we came home from the ER they both fell asleep even quicker than usual (fatigued from the excitement, was my guess).  Oh, to have that short term memory dump capability, I remember thinking.  Meanwhile, as our children dozed in blissful ignorance, MH and I sat upright in our bed, eyes abuzz from our respective adrenaline overdoses.

“What just happened?” I said to MH.  “I feel like – like I should attack something.  I’m all geared up for battle, but there’s no one to fight.”

*   *   *

When the option for prophylactic HIV treatment had been offered to us, I thought:

Is this the day our lives change forever?

I hoped the medical personnel were going to advise *against* such treatment; instead, they’d presented the pros and cons, and left the decision to us.

I’d already decided that, unless there were compelling evidence to do so, no way was I going to agree to poison my kids to play the odds.  During some of the down time in the ER exam room I’d chatted with the kindly if seriously-demeanored P.A., and discovered that he too was a parent.  After he and a hospital physician had presented the HIV treatment option to MH and I, I waited until the physician left the room, then asked the PA,

“What would *you* do, if this had happened to *your* children?”

He paused, and I continued.

“I know you’re not supposed to answer that kind of question, but please?”

The P.A. nodded at me, in a way I can only describe as respectful, and I saw the brief flicker of a smile cross his eyes for the first time since he’d met us.  No, he said, if it were his children, he would not opt for the HIV prophylaxis.

*   *   *

Thanks to the merciful element known as “the passing of Time,” the distress of that day has morphed, for me, into having an impassive remembrance of what happened without having to relive how it “felt.”  Years will pass without me thinking about the accident, and then something will remind me.

One such reminder came via a local public television show I saw a few years ago, which featured an interview with an activist who “represented” an encampment which homeless people had been setting up in a Portland neighborhood.  The encampment was in an area which had been designated as a wildlife corridor; homeowners living near the corridor were disgusted and alarmed by the encampment’s accumulating trash, habitat destruction, and crime.  The activist/representative said that the camp occupants were policing themselves – she looked directly into the camera and declared that they had a strict, no drugs/no alcohol policy.

 

 

Local news reported that within days of authorities evicting the campers, the encampment resembled an EPA-declared toxic waste dump. City employees and volunteers who cleared out the hundreds of pounds of garbage the campers had left behind had to wear special gloves and protective garments, as the trash included  – surprise, “self-policing” activist/representative! – drug paraphernalia, including contaminated syringes and needles.

When I read that follow-up story I was right back to that day – back to the moment when MH ran up to my car, carrying our frightened five-year-old in his arms; back to the moment when I realized that *both* of our children had been stuck by a hypodermic needle; back to the moment when, as surely as I could sense my own pulse hammering in my carotid artery, I felt as if my “spirit” were draining out of my skull, down through my chest and gut and legs, and exiting my body through the soles of my feet.  And no, this is not a florid way of saying I peed my pants (which I didn’t).  The sensation was so vivid, I later checked my car’s floormat for…something (I didn’t really know what I was looking for).

Several months passed before the needle stick accident wasn’t the first and last thing I thought of every day.  Some mornings with stoic acceptance and some nights with fierce, Samuel L. Jackson-style defiance (“C’mon, just try and hurt us again, you needle-discarding, muthaF#&%?! ass#@&%* !”), I’d contemplate the fact that there are so many things out of a parent’s control.  Seemingly apropos of nothing, I would find myself ruminating on the plethora of shit, be it circumstantial, biological, genetic, or whatever, that I could neither anticipate nor control, but which could harm K and Belle.

I eventually made peace with the reality that generations of parents before me had recognized:

Your life can change in an instant;
your love for your children may be river deep and mountain high,
but it cannot protect them from everything that might harm them….
including random fate and their and other peoples’ (and your own) mistakes.

One day, several months after the NS accident and after things had returned to the proverbial normal, I was out running errands with Belle.  We were at a crafty-type store, getting supplies for her preschool project, and she had to pee.  The store’s restroom was a fairly large, handicapped access room. After Belle flushed the toilet and began to move to the sink to wash up, she exclaimed, “Look!” and reached for a shiny object lying on the floor, to the side of the toilet.

I had my first ever out-of-body experience: I watched as a hand (that was apparently my own) reached out with lightning speed and slapped Belle’s hand just before she touched the object; I heard a banshee’s voice from the bowels of the hells I don’t believe in bellow from my mouth:

” NO NO NO NO NO !!!
Don’t EVER pick up ANYTHING when you don’t know what it is –
didn’t you learn ANYTHING from the accident ?!?!? “

It took a stunned two seconds for first Belle and then me to burst into tears, and a nanosecond after that for me to apologize to her.

*   *   *

May you never have a similar story to tell;
May you make peace with life’s realities but do your damnedest anyway;
May you remember to ask for something to eat and drink when
you’re stuck in an ER room for hours;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

 

*   *   *

 

[1] Thank you for the inspiration, Samuel L. Jackson.

[2] One of the more (if not most) liberal of the Protestant denominations.  Yes, this foulmouthed  expressive atheist and her family were active church members.

[3] The P.A., doctors, and nurses we saw during our ER stay.

[4] He had also spoken with at least two other Tuality hospital physicians, one of whom, along with the P.A., presented the HIV prophylactic treatment option to us.  We also had several nurses (in and out of the exam room where we and the kids waited) who never introduced themselves.

[5] Although, oddly enough, neither of them said anything to us about it…which I attribute to them being intimidated by the surroundings.

[6]  This happened as I was doing a finger poke blood draw from a high-risk (multiple sexual partners; IV drug user) patient: I poked myself with the same lancet I’d just used on the patient, as I was transferring the lancet to the sharpie container.  It was a move I’d done a hundred times, only that time I somehow managed to stick myself as I grabbed the sharpie container.  To this day, I’m not sure how it happened, but I’ll never forget how the patient looked at me and said, “Uh oh.” 

[7] Which I should have had anyway…but I’d kept putting off for time/scheduling reasons.

[8] Then a few months later, in a veterinary setting, I saw a similar garment used to restrain a fractious cat!