It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of My Favorite Week Of The Year
It used to be this week – the days after Christmas and before January 1. Much of the holiday pressure is gone (except if you are foolish brave enough to be hosting a NYE gathering), and you can just relax and enjoy, do some winter wonderland walking/hiking, hang out with friends and family…. And no one seems to take work so seriously [2] during this lame-duck-week of the year.
Or, you can be like moiself and battle a nasty head cold.
I’ve been dealing with a simple head cold for a week; no fever, negative COVID test – same symptoms but now, with fever. My California friends have told me that “everyone” there is getting sick with rhinoviruses and enteroviruses that hang on for some time (and there was an article in this morning’s LA Times about it). Seeing as how the illnesses are viral, there isn’t much you can do about them besides home care…which, I admit I’d *not* been doing, since I didn’t feel “that bad.”
I guess this is my body’s way of saying, “Look, just stay in bed for one whole day and watch game shows and old westerns on the GRIT channel.”
Moiself actually was able to nap yesterday afternoon, and by nap I mean hallucinate upstairs in bed with the TV on, attaining consciousness up every now and then to see that my temperature is 102.2 but at least I’m not in the courtroom of Judge Judy , whom is dressing down yet another idiot who speaks out of turn/offers hearsay as testimony and generally comes to court woefully unprepared.
* * *
Department Of My Last (Blog) Complaint Of The Year Sub-Department of when AI stands for AAII ayyiyiyiyi!!!!!
As in, Absolutely Abominably Incorrectly Identified.
“Time and again, facial recognition technology gets it wrong….
This technology still relies heavily on vast quantities of information that it is incapable of assessing for reliability. And, in many cases, that information is biased….
Georgetown University’s Center on Privacy & Technology noted that at least 26 states allow police officers to run or request to have facial recognition searches run against their driver’s license and ID databases….. given the disproportionate rate at which African Americans are subject to arrest, the center found that facial recognition systems that rely on mug shot databases are likely to include an equally disproportionate number of African Americans.
More disturbingly, facial recognition software is significantly less reliable for Black and Asian people, who, according to a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, were 10 to 100 times more likely to be misidentified than white people. The institute, along with other independent studies, found that the systems’ algorithms struggled to distinguish between facial structures and darker skin tones.
The use of such biased technology has had real-world consequences for innocent people throughout the country. To date, six people that we know of have reported being falsely accused of a crime following a facial recognition match — all six were Black.”
“Rite Aid has been banned from using facial recognition technology for five years over allegations that its surveillance system was used incorrectly to identify potential shoplifters, especially Black, Latino, Asian or female shoppers….
The FTC said in a federal court complaint that technology used by Rite Aid for several years led to thousands of incorrect matches, including an incident where Rite Aid store employees stopped and searched an 11-year-old girl.
Rite Aid used facial recognition technology in hundreds of stores from October 2012 to July 2020 to identify shoppers ‘it had previously deemed likely to engage in shoplifting or other criminal behavior,’ the FTC said. The company didn’t tell customers that it was using the technology.”
This is the fear: imagine being “incorrectly identified” – as in, being accused of theft, or any crime you didn’t do – and then having to prove your innocence against AI identifying technology. Most people have been brought up to assume,
“When where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
The thing is, with our advances in technology (not all of which moiself considers to be advances, as in, indicative of progress for civilization) there in fact may be no fire. There isn’t even any smoke in the first place – it’s all CGI.
But if there is smoke and/or fire, I hope that Godzilla is somehow involved.
* * *
Department Of BTW
In two days, the last day of 2023, the date will be 123123.
May you remember to take care of yourself when you’re sick; May you enjoy the rest of 2023’s lame duck week; May you look forward to a year free from AI mis-identifying; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[3] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* *
Department Of Somehow I Managed Not To Post This To The Store’s Site…
But I’m sharing it with y’all.
Background info: my adopted village[2] of Manzanita (Oregon) has several nicknames, including, Muttzanita. [3] It’s a dog-friendly town to say the least, and in the 30 years moiself has been hanging around the coast I’ve seen the best and worst of dog owners. I am happy to report that *most* of the dog owners – well, the locals, as in, the ones who actually live at the coast – are good at picking up after their dogs (even though, the, uh, “remnants” of their dog’s solid business still remain, and the liquids blend in…eventually). Still, there’s a reason (besides the rusty hooks, jagged crab pot wires and other fishing detritus that periodically come ashore with the tide) that, although I walk on the beach every day when I’m at the coast, I don’t do so barefooted.
Dateline: earlier this week. A store at Manzanita, one which I love and where I’ve frequently shopped, posted an ad on their social media page for a new holiday product they are offering for sale:
Stocking stuffer alert!🫧🌊🩵 Our magical Sand & Sea Scrub Bars are blended with sand from Manzanita Beach!
My first thought: For anyone familiar with – as in, paying attention to – what gets deposited onto the sands of Manzanita beach, this is not an enticement. Do the buyers realize that means they will be scrubbing their skin with puppy piss-drenched sand? [4]
Just adding the “magic” ingredient to the sand and sea scrub bars!
* * *
Department Of Yes Virginia, You’re Correct About Santa, But If You Know What’s Good For You You’ll Keep Your Mouth Shut
Sub-Department of Two Santa Stories
I don’t know how old I was when I figured it out, but I can never remember a time when I thought about Santa and “believed” – that is, when I thought about the story of Santa Claus and thought it was true/Santa was real, rather than knowing that he was a character in a story and that my parents actually supplied “Santa’s” gifts under the tree and in our Christmas stockings. I also cannot remember ever discussing this with my parents, or my siblings, when I was a child. Moiself *does* remember the common knowledge about such things: kids believed in Santa Claus; adults didn’t. After noting the difference between the respective Christmas presents received by kids and their parents, I thought it in my best interest to keep my mouth shut.
Look at what kids who “believed in Santa” (even the ones just pretending to believe) found under their Christmas trees: A miniature, pedal-propelled 1956 Chevy-styled sedan; Barbies and GI Joes; roller skates and skateboards and pogo sticks; Nancy Drew books and Animals of the World almanacs; Lincoln Log sets and Mousetrap games; Tonka trucks and plush stuffed animals. And what did the adults, the A-Santa-ists, get? Sockx and neckties; aftershave lotion and talcum powder; stationery and appliances.
I figured out early on that the idea was to go along with the story for as long as possible….which is somewhat related to the reasons why I stayed in religion (read: was not out about my non-belief) for so long. You get better “presents” when you go along with the pretense.
Then, viola! you’re a grownup with a forehead-smacking moment of realization: the Santa Claus story is one of the most useful tools ever for freethinkers, in showing how otherwise seemingly kind and intelligent people can agree to promote a lie, even after you ask them a direct question and emphatically request a truthful answer, for what they believe is the greater good (“Oh, honey, of course there is a Santa Claus!”).
“It’s hard to even consider the possibility that Santa isn’t real. Everyone seems to believe he is. As a kid, I heard his name in songs and stories and saw him in movies with very high production values. My mom and dad seemed to believe, batted down my doubts, told me he wanted me to be good and that he always knew if I wasn’t. And what wonderful gifts I received! Except when they were crappy, which I always figured was my fault somehow. All in all, despite the multiple incredible improbabilities involved in believing he was real, I believed – until the day I decided I cared enough about the truth to ask serious questions, at which point the whole façade fell to pieces. Fortunately the good things I had credited him with kept coming, but now I knew they came from the people around me, whom I could now properly thank.
Now go back and read that paragraph again, changing the ninth word from Santa to God.
Santa Claus, my secular friends, is the greatest gift a rational worldview ever had. Our culture has constructed a silly and temporary myth parallel to its silly and permanent one….“
…as our son began to exhibit the incipient inklings of Kringledoubt, it occurred to me that something powerful was going on. I began to see the Santa paradigm as an unmissable opportunity – the ultimate dry run for a developing inquiring mind….
This is the moment, at the threshold of the question, that the natural inquiry of a child can be primed or choked off. With questions of belief, you have three choices: feed the child a confirmation, feed the child a disconfirmation – or teach the child to fish.
The ‘Yes, Virginia’ crowd will heap implausible nonsense on the poor child, dismissing her doubts with invocations of magic or mystery or the willful suspension of physical law. Only slightly less problematic is the second choice, the debunker who simply informs the child that, yes, Santa is a big fat fraud….
I for one chose door number three.
‘Some people believe the sleigh is magic,’ I said. ‘Does that sound right to you?’ Initially, boy howdy, did it ever. He wanted to believe, and so was willing to swallow any explanation, no matter how implausible or how tentatively offered. ‘Some people say it isn’t literally a single night,’ I once said, naughtily priming the pump for later inquiries….
I avoided both lying outright and setting myself up as a godlike authority, determined as I was to let him sort this one out himself. And when at last, at the age of nine, in the snowy parking lot of the Target store, to the sound of a Salvation Army bellringer, he asked me point blank if Santa was real – I demurred, just a bit, one last time.
‘What do you think?’ I said.
‘Well…I think all the moms and dads are Santa.’ He smiled at me. ‘Am I right?’
I smiled back. It was the first time he’d asked me directly, and I told him he was right. ‘So,’ I asked, ‘how do you feel about that?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s fine. Actually, it’s good. The world kind of… I don’t know…makes sense again.’
By allowing our children to participate in the Santa myth and find their own way out of it through skeptical inquiry, we give them a priceless opportunity to see a mass cultural illusion first from the inside, then from the outside. A very casual line of post-Santa questioning can lead kids to recognize how completely we all can snow ourselves if the enticements are attractive enough.Such a lesson, viewed from the top of the hill after exiting a belief system under their own power, can gird kids against the best efforts of the evangelists -– and far better than secondhand knowledge could ever hope to do.
( excerpt from “Santa, The Ultimate Dry Run,” Parenting Beyond Belief, Dale McGowan; my emphases )
* * *
Department Of The Second Santa-related Story
The second Santa-related story comes from a bookmoiself has previously/recent blogged about, We Of Little Faith: Why I stopped pretending to believe (and maybe you should too), by Kate Cohen. BTW, Cohen is not out to convert religious believers; rather, her book aims to support and persuade those who are religion-free to be open about *their* beliefs (and about their mere presence, in this religious rhetoric-saturated world).
In the book’s epilogue the author tells of an encounter she and Lena, the author’s then three-year-old daughter, had in a grocery store checkout line. It was a few days after Christmas; Lena and her mom were standing behind a father who had his two preschoolers in his cart. The father turned to speak with Lena.
” ‘Did Santa bring you something good this year?’ he asked.
As you know, I grew up Jewish in a small town in Virginia. And, as you know, I’m fond of Christmas. When someone wishes me a ‘Merry Christmas’ I typically respond with a hearty, ‘And a Merry Christmas to you.’ but this felt different. Asking a random child about Santa Claus in Albany, New York, where Yom Kippur is a public school holiday, struck me as a bit careless.
Indeed, my daughter looked confused, even troubled. I was straining to think of a polite way to tell the guy he was a jerk when Lena did it for me.
Solemnly, she said, ‘Santa Claus is just pretend.’ He looked stricken and came closer, glancing back at his two little cart riders. ‘Don’t tell my kids, okay,’ he said to Lena. ‘They still think he’s real.’ Lena nodded, accepting the burden of discretion.
I was so proud of her for speaking up, and then so sad that she was immediately asked to keep quiet. To be a nice girl, she was expected to hold her tongue. She was expected to hide the truth as she knew it and respect a lie that others had constructed. A pleasant, harmless lie, you might say. But a lie, nonetheless. “
( excerpt from Kate Cohen’s, We Of Little Faith:
Why I stopped pretending to believe (and maybe you should too), my emphases )
May you never feel compelled to respect even “pleasant and harmless” lies: May you enjoy the beach (and watch your step); May you have the happiest of whatever you celebrate; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[5] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of Someone Who Obviously Did Not Reread What She’d Posted After She Posted It
Background: There’s FB group wherein residents of our fair city post jobs offers, services sought, items for sale, etc. Dateline: Monday, 8 am-ish. MH is scanning the afore-mentioned FB group, and reads me one particular post:
“Hi! I am looking for a professional mobile pet groomer.
I have two small dogs and all they need is nail trim/grind
and their anal gland expressed…. “
That’s *all*? How did the poster possibly attain even quasi-sentient adulthood without realizing that the phrase, “All they need” – signaling a minimizing of the need which is to follow – is never, ever, appropriately associated with anything to do with anal gland expressions ?
* * *
Department Of Sounds Like A Holiday Themed Porno, If You Ask Moiself
And you did ask, didn’t you?
* * *
Department Of Petty But Important Grudges To Hold
Why I play the New York Times word game, Letterboxed, but refused to play their game Spelling Bee anymore:
Because when given the right letters in the right places, Letterboxed will let me enter a legitimate if touchy word, e.g., shat, where as Spelling Bee, despite providing the right letters to spell the name of a beautiful African wild cat, would not let me enter the word caracal, because this totally legitimate, not-at-all-controversial-nor-carrying-scatological undertones, is not on the game editor’s “curated list.” [2]
“Curate *this*, NY Times.”
* * *
Department Of A High School Student Had To Sue Her School District To Do What?
That would be, she had to sue her school district to be able to have a table outside of her school’s cafeteria, with literature available on milk alternatives and plant-based milk options. That’s what Eagle Rock High School senior Marielle Williamson wanted to do. She’d researched the negative impacts the dairy industry has on both the environment and animal welfare, and wanted her fellow students to know that there are milk alternatives.
“… But administrators said she could only do so
if she promoted dairy milk as well….
(Despite the fact that the school is already promoting dairy products, with “…school hallways covered in ‘Got Milk?’ posters.”)
‘It was kind of like, Wow, this is serious,’ (Williamson) said.
‘The hold the dairy industry has over schools is so strong that I can’t even promote soy milk at my school.’
In May, Williamson, along with the advocacy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, filed a federal lawsuit against her school administrators and the Los Angeles Unified School District, alleging that her 1st Amendment rights were violated when school officials barred her from sharing material about plant-based milk options without also including information on dairy milk. The suit also named the U.S. Department of Agriculture….
(editorial comment: The suit was settled by the school – yay!)
The USDA, which did not join the settlement, has filed a motion to dismiss the case, Press said (Deborah Press, general counsel for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine), but Williamson and the committee intend to pursue it and challenge federal statutes that, in part, require schools in the National School Lunch Program to serve cow’s milk during meals as a condition to receive federal funding….
‘LAUSD wasn’t the problem here; they were doing their best to comply with these dogmatic federal rules,’ Press said….
In order to receive a dairy milk substitute, a student is required to provide a note from a doctor or parent citing a medical or dietary need to restrict the student’s choice of milk.
The federal policy also states that schools in the program ‘shall not directly or indirectly restrict the sale or marketing of fluid milk products by the school’ at any time while on school premises or at school events. “
Yeah, WTF. And, wow. Who did the dairy industry screw pay off to get that statute into federal law in the first place (a statute I’m guessing few people were aware of, until the lawsuit)?
After the lawsuit was settled, Shannon Haber, a spokesperson for LAUSD, released a statement saying that, “Our Food Services Program follows USDA guidelines, and we continue to support our students with nutritious meals and healthy alternatives for those who have specific dietary requests and requirements.”
Scientists and nutritionists – at least those not employed/paid off by the dairy industry – have long known that “nutritious meals and healthy alternatives” do not need, and probably should not include, dairy products. And, as the article mentioned, “Black, Indigenous, Asian and Latino Americans are among those most likely to suffer from lactose intolerance, which can result in digestive issues including bloating, diarrhea and gas after consuming milk products.”
Got diarrhea milk?
Oh, and here’s the ethnic makeup of LAUSD students: 74% Hispanic/Latino, 7.3% Black, 5.7% Asian or Asian/Pacific Islander, 0.1% American Indian or Alaska Native, 0.2% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 10% White. Yep, nine out of ten LAUSD students are likely to have, to some degree, lactose intolerance or sensitivity.
Just wondering: why are we the only mammals who continue to consume milk products after we are weaned, and then, not even products (cheese/milk/cream) made using the milk of our own species? And yes, this question is coming from someone who thinks Tillamook Pepper Jack cheese is as habit-forming as crack cocaine…. [3]
Well, Martha, actually not, but it sure is addictive.
* * *
Department Of Well Of Course A Middle Child Would Find This Interesting
Moiself has long had an interest the theories of birth order and sibling relationships as tools to understand the complexities of family bonds. My interest in this area of family dynamics was heightened when I recently came across a link to an article from The Atlantic on birth order and gender expectations:
“…a contingent of oldest sisters have described the stress of feeling accountable for their family’s happiness, the pressure to succeed, and the impression that they aren’t being cared for in the way they care for others. People have even coined a term for this, ‘eldest-daughter syndrome,’ which speaks to a real social phenomenon, according to Yang Hu, a professor of global sociology. In many cultures, oldest siblings as well as daughters of all ages tend to face high expectations from family members—so people playing both parts are especially likely to take on a large share of household responsibilities, and might deal with more stress as a result.
The caregiving tendency isn’t an inevitable quality of eldest daughters; rather…it tends to be imposed by family members who are part of a society that presumes that eldest daughters should act a certain way.Birth order does not impact your personality, but it can impact how your family views you. Eldest kids aren’t necessarily more responsible than their siblings; instead, they tend to be given more responsibilities because they are older. Expectations are also influenced by gender. Daughters in particular can be seen as ‘kin keepers,’ performing invisible labor that keeps a family together.
The complexities inherent in birth order theories have always intrigued moiself. There are sooooooo many variables – the number and gender of the children; the spacing between their births, a child whose mental and/or physical health issues drain monetary, emotional and time resources from the other children, the family’s financial situation….[4] – too many variables for the theories to be subject to any kind of testing that will hold scientific water, so to speak.
“Older children are ____. Only children are _____. Middle children are ____.“
These generalizations seem to touch some observational keystones, amongst both psychology professionals and us layfolk. But there are also a bajillion exceptions to the attempts at classification, such as this example: [5]
You are not your parent’s oldest child; you are the fourth of their six children. But there was such a large gap between their first four the second two offspring (you and your baby sister are the,“Ooops I guess it wasn’t menopause after all!” babies) that your older sisters and brothers were out of the house before you had anything resembling a sibling relationship with them: throughout your life, they’ve been more like aunts/uncles/distant cousins. Thus, *experientially,* instead of being a middle or younger/est child, you are the oldest child in a family of two children.
Fitting with everything I’ve read on the subject, The Atlantic article says the research shows that birth order does not confirm personality traits, but it *does* affect how people view you, and treat you, and what their expectations are of you. And it is fairly well-established that how people treat us impacts how we view and treat ourselves.
My father was from a family of six children, and he’d told me how his parents’ relations with his siblings influenced how he wanted to raise his own children. [6] Several decades ago, when I first started reading articles about how parents respond to different children, I was fascinated by the studies, and they got me to consider my own family experiences. On more than one visit to my parents’ house I tried to have a conversation with my father about it – get his opinion, basically. But he would have none of it.
My father was a person with many fine qualities; however, introspection wasn’t one of them, and he wasn’t well-educated. Despite my attempted explanations to the contrary, I think he took my wanting discuss the subject – of birth order/different expectations; parents’ relationships to different children – as my wanting an answer to a question that had never occurred to me to ask. He seemed to think I was implying that he (and our mother) loved certain of their children “more” than others. No matter how I phrased my questions/observations, he would respond with variations of, “We love you all the same.”
“Your love was never in question,” I tried to assure him. Finally, in good-natured exasperation (but exasperation nonetheless), I sighed, “You’re not listening….” [7] But it was a lost cause.
Years later, after observing friends and family members have and raise their children, and then after MH and I had our own two offspring, I have come to this opinion:
If you truly believe you “love your children all the same,” then you don’t really love them – or see them – for who they are.
You can’t love your children *all the same* because your children are not *all the same.* They need different things from you at different times.
One Of My Siblings (OOMS) has a good life now but had a very difficult time for many years, due in part/IMO to the fact that our parents loved us “all the same.” Translation: they parented us all the same, even though we were four different kids and OOMS had different challenges than the other three. But because the rest of their kids didn’t have those challenges, my parents just didn’t see (or didn’t want to see) the struggles OOMS was going through. Not to cast blame; they, along with 99% of their peers, [8] were simply ignorant re behavioral and mental health issues. OOMS needed more guidance, more attention, a firmer hand, so to speak. OOMS wasn’t as self-starting, self-regulating, and motivated and organized as the other three; OOMS was flailing, in many ways. But this idea of theirs, that they “loved us the same,” led them to assume that OOMS would, eventually, turn out the same.
“It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are atheists
and were religion not inculcated into their minds, they would remain so.”
( Ernestine Louise Rose, (January 13, 1810 – August 4, 1892)
a…”suffragist, abolitionist, and freethinker who has been called the ‘first Jewish feminist.’ )
* * *
May you not try to love everybody “all the same”; May you steer clear of curated word lists; May you never need a note from your parent to choose oat milk, FFS; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[2] I know because I emailed the editor after this had happened to me, and he replied.
[3] Not that moiself is familiar with crack cocaine, or any kind of highly addictive anesthetic (except for that prescribed me for wisdom teeth extraction all those many years ago), but hey, I like, read things….
[4] “Oldests” and “Onlys” get more of their parents’ time and resources (both are finite qualities, and must be divvied up with the arrival of more children) – this one observation is a fact (one of the few in birth order hypotheses), not a theory. The parents may be financially struggling with the first child, and then get established in their careers and be more economically secure as the years go by…OR, if they have “too many” children (as in more than they can support and/or they get laid off from work….), the financial circumstances can go in the opposite direction…. Just one of the variables to the “rules” of what Oldest and Only get.
[7] That was a common theme, for conversations with my parents which involved subject matter deeper than the weather or what the kids are doing in school. If there was any issue that might make them the tiniest bit uncomfortable – and those issues could be difficult to impossible to anticipate – they would reframe what I had said/asked into a question they felt comfortable answering (even if *they* were the ones who’d brought up the uncomfortable issue in the first place!)…or they’d just change the subject.
[9] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, Moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Am I So Lucky To Have Raised A Science *And* Film Nerd?
Dateline: last Saturday, circa 8:50 am. The following IM message chat ensued between daughter Belle and moiself, after she’d IM’d me the previous evening to let me know she was going to see the new Godzillamovie.
Belle: OkayGodzilla Minus One was AWESOME….
I know I recommend a lot of movies but I RECOMMEND this one.
Moiself: I will see it for sure…We’ll see if I can drag MH to it.[2]
Belle: It’s a pretty low budget film, but the combination of practical and special effects is really well done, and the story is really solid.
I also really like the Godzilla design.
Moiself : He doesn’t have a peewee head, I hope. In some past ones his head was out of proportion to his body, IMO.
Belle: Sorry, his head is tiny haha.
Moiself: 😵💫
Belle: … the tiny head had never really bothered me. It makes sense for a lizard that lives in land and water. It’s an aerodynamic shape; and, I think the canon is that he feeds off of radiation, so he technically doesn’t need a big mouth to eat anything
Moiself: This conversation is so going in my next blog post.
You are right, of course. I think I’m reacting to having been imprinted on the original Godzilla, in which he had a much bigger head, more like a T-rex, but your commentary on the design makes sense.
Belle: Because of course the anatomy of a giant radiation-consuming lizard has to make evolutionary sense!
Moiself: Doesn’t the radiation trump evolution here?
Belle: Exactly lol, I’m saying it’s kinda silly to assume the small head is because he doesn’t need to eat things when it’s a totally made-up monster.
But I like the case of evolution gone totally haywire. That’s more fun.
* * *
Department Of Later That Same Day….
Dateline: Saturday, WA CO County Fairgrounds convention hall. MH and I attended theWinter Moon Bazaar. It had been advertised as a “pagan fest,” with
“…Over 100 Vendors: Explore a diverse array of artisanal treasures. Female Krampus: Witness the enchanting allure of the Winter Moon. Pagan Spirit: Celebrate the season’s magic and history. Concessions: Satisfy your cravings with delightful treats. Workshops and Entertainment…”
We heard about it from a (non-pagan) friend, who had a booth there with her crocheting and other handwork; we decided to stop by to see her and check it out. The event was sponsored by paganfrye….whose website’s motto, “Your magick begins here,” is probably a better marketing slogan than, “Serving all of your sparkly hokum needs.” And in case y’all be wondering what that alternative spellingindicates, other than an attempt at being precious…
MH and I roamed the convention hall, checking out the booths. The Winter Moon Bazaar resembled most any other holiday bazaar, except for the dominance of vendors whose products signaled the pagan/wicca theme. I found moiself wondering how many of those peddling their witchy wares actually “believe in” or practice Wicca or contemporary paganism. We saw one of the entertainment moments: dancing by some of the fest’s participants, who were attired in…. There’s no nice way to put it. I’ll just say moiself cringed with embarrassment for them – and for any actual Wiccans present, who surely don’t dress like middle-aged women who got drunk at a Walmart post-Halloween costume sale and tried on all the merchandise.
Son K once told me, after reading up on the various spiritualities which fall under the umbrella of paganism – [3]Wicca or witchcraft, druids , pantheistic or theistic-free – that paganism reminds him of the “modern” religions, in that its followers ultimately (whether or not consciously), and simply decide to “….pick something they want to believe to be true, and so they devote themselves to that.”
Sounds about right, from moiself’s POV . After several interesting conversations with self-identified Wiccans/pagans over the years (in college, and in post-college work situations) I came away with the impression that pagan spiritualities are akin to all other spiritualities. And therefore they, like all worldviews, are subject to the same critiques and analysis, including the first and foremost, RGP’s First Law of Spiritual Dynamics:
* Open your eyes and get off your knees – don’t worship any one or thing.*
The now-defunct FCOE was created by artist (and former corporate lawyer!) Stephanie Pierce.
“For three decades, one of the best known and quirkiest Portland tourist attractions was the 24 Hour Church of Elvis…. For a quarter, visitors could hear a sermon by Elvis, confess their sins, receive the Elvis catechism, or get a photo with the King of Rock and Roll. Pierce also offered Elvis-themed wedding services, including legal weddings for $25, novelty weddings for $5, and coin-operated weddings for $1…” (excerpt from the Oregon Encyclopedia )
Alas, despite the 24 hour claim, moiself was never able to avail myself of the F C of E services, as it was always closed/out of order when I stopped by.
Reverences heaped upon The King of Rock ‘n Roll® aside, I find the concept of worship to be obsequious, abhorrent, and ultimately dangerous for the human mind and motives. However, if for some reason people want to devote themselves to the veneration of “forces,” both outside and/or encompassing ourselves, honoring “the forces of nature” (personified or otherwise) seems to me to be more rational than embracing the bizarre theologies of theistic religions, wherein some *supernatural* deity/force is said to be in charge of the *natural* world.
Venerating what we can see, what we know to exist – the change of the seasons, the tides, etc. – well, whatever floats your boat swoons your moon, engages your sage. Also, I can’t recall hearing of a Wiccan vilifying someone’s sexual orientation or trying to ban books from libraries or insisting that their beliefs about nature be taught in school science classes….
Except for what seems to be a common connection between the practices of Wicca and the celestial horseshit unicorn feces of astrology, tarot readings and other psychic divination absurdities, what the heck – how harmful can such beliefs be? Then I visited the website of the person/group [4] organizing the event, took a peek, and found…services…offered under a heading called Crows of Fate. ( a small sample; my emphases):
* Flight of Truth – A 5 card draw placed in a cross pattern. It shows you the truth of your current situation. $20
* Full Flight – A 10 card draw placed in the Celtic Cross fashion. This draw is best for when you are struggling with a difficult problem. $50
Oracle and other Services If you have difficulty figuring out what question you should focus on or just need a yes or no answer the Oracle cards are best for such answers at $7 a card.
Psychic Services for Private Events: Only Tarot and Oracle readings are available for private events…. It will cost $80 to retain my services for the evening….
Psychic Consultations: I am more than willing to help with any psychic or magical trouble you are having for $10/hr.
…. Please give a basic description of the problem so that I can arrive properly equipped to deal with the problem. Otherwise you will incur an inconvenience fee of $160.
And moiself once thought that theistic religions had the corner on con games. Anyone ignorant enough to pay for such psychic services will incur more intellectual damage than any $160 inconvenience fee would cost them.
Oh, and this is priceless: psychic consultations which stipulate beforehand, “Please give a basic description of the problem.“ So much for psychic abilities.
* * *
Department Of On A Related Subject….
I have blogged previously about the subject – alternative spiritual practices – as in this excerpt from my post of 2-17-17:
As regular readers of this blog know (and new or sporadic readers will likely surmise), I am not a religious person. I was raised by church-going, Christian parents; [5] flirted with/researched a variety of denominations during/post college; was a member (even served as a deacon, holy shit!) of a UCC church [6] for many years; happily (read: finally) came out over a decade ago [7] as a lifelong skeptic-atheist-Freethinker-Bright.
While I hold a modicum of respect for some of the ideals and practices of, say, contemporary non-theistic Buddhism and Unitarianism and Jainism, I find all religions to be more-or-less silly/offensive/just plain fallacious. There is one “spiritual” practice, however, which I can somewhat understand, if only in that it makes a teesny-tiny, infinitesimally wee bit o’ sense:
Ancestor Worship.
Yes, really.
Make that, ancestor veneration, not worship. For the love of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, get off your knees, open your eyes, and stop bowing your head – nobody should “worship” anything.
Worship: VERB
1. [with object] Show reverence and adoration for (a deity)
1.1 [no object] Take part in a religious ceremony.
(English Oxford Living Dictionary)
Unlike the claims of religions which have one or more deities, you don’t have to take your ancestors’ existence on “faith” [8] – you know they have lived (you yourself are evidence of that); you’ve likely met them one, or two, or sometimes even three generations back. From the photo albums and other heirlooms to the birth certificates, school and county records, family businesses, homes, farmsteads, and kinfolk near and far, you’ve an idea of what they have “given” you, materially, intellectually and emotionally – you’ve some idea what you might be grateful for.
Best of all, you’ve little incentive to argue or go to war with other people over whose interpretation of what their imaginary friend wants is correct. Your neighbor’s ancestors are their business, and yours are yours….
Now then. By ancestor venerationI’m not talking any kind of belief system wherein the dead are beseeched to intercede on behalf of the living – that’s just as silly as all the others (religions). I do not believe that my deceased grandparents and parents have a continued existence in a spirit world, nor that their spirits look after moiself and my family in particular or the world in general, nor that they somehow can influence the fate of the living. I’m talking about a practice of honor and appreciation, in which a person might use the roads paved and trails blazed by previous generations as a focal point for remembrance and gratitude.
Thanks for the dimples, Dad.
I’m not sure what brought the previous topic to mind. A likely suspect is the recent death of my mother. [9] Anyway, y’all have my permission to honor your ancestors…as well as my fervent wish that that is as far as your theology goes. However, as I look at the state of the world, it appears that the old superstitions have some staying power. As long as people continue to proclaim and dispute whose invisible leader is the bestest, I’d like someone to come up with another dog in the fight.
Putting it yet another way, y’all have my encouragement (if you are religiously inclined) to come up with a new religion, within the following parameters: in this belief system, it is the men who are required, in one form or another, to cover themselves.
That’s it.
Yep. That’s the entire theology in a nutshell. [10]
From a light veil or a hijab – make, that, a he-jab – to a full-body, Bro burqua, your theology must include all the usual nonsense reasons (modesty; an easily offended diety; protection from your fellow believers who will beat the holy crap out of you if you show any evidence of human form) as to why certain people – in this case, those with boy parts – must be covered in public.
Duuuuuuuude – put a scarf on it.
We swear on Her Holy name, it doesn’t make your butt look big, no, not at all.
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself. Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [11]
( LARPing = Live Action Role Playing, wherein participants dress in costume, use props,
and act out roles in a fantasy scenarios or multiplayer games. )
* * *
May you be conscious of your LARPing; May you attend at least one holiday bazaar (who *doesn’t* need a felt troll?); May you remember that popcorn goes well with any Godzilla movie; …and may the hijinks ensue.
[3] The historical pre-Christian-era religious beliefs of peoples in what are now the European countries and certain areas of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula territories, Syria, and Turkey.
[5] Lutheran, specifically: what was once called the ALC and now ELCA, for those obsessives interested in denominational nitpicking, It wasn’t one of the “synod” denominations (Missouri & Wisconsin), which are closer to Catholicism in their conservative doctrines (e.g. women cannot be ordained as ministers; liking to snipe about other denominations as being the “not true” faiths) .
[6] Which I have, since leaving, recommended to people who for whatever reasons are looking for a liberal Christian church experience and/or community.
[10] Which is the proper receptacle for all theologies.
[11] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics, and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
It’s that time of the year again. As has become a tradition much maligned anticipated in our neighborhood, moiself is hosting a different Partridge, every week, in my front yard. [1]
Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?
* * *
Department Of Dissing Remembering The Dead
Dateline: 11-21-23. Longtime friend and college apartment-mate SB posted a link (on social media) to an obituary: HG, a fiction writer and one of our college’s part-time professors, had died at age 99.
SB’s post sent me on the express train to memory-ville, and I commented with the first thought that came to mind when I read the news:
“Didn’t know he was still alive.”
But I’d edited moiself’s reaction, which was, in its entirety:
“Didn’t know he was still alive…
I’d assumed he’d died decades ago, crushed under the massive weight of his own self-regard.”
If I’d read HG’s obituary (I didn’t), I’m sure I’d have run across the compliments from those who liked HG and/or his work. Still, I doubt that any of the praise and adoration typically cast upon the departed would have equaled or exceeded HG’s own high opinion of himself.
I’d not taken a class from HG, but two of my college apartment mates (SB, and GG) did, during Winter quarter of SB’s and my sophomore year. During that quarter moiself heard their stories of HG’s class. Then, one oh-so-memorable night, I met HG when he came to dinner at our apartment, after which I thanked the gods and my lucky stars – none of which I believed in [2] – that I was not in his class.
Y’all may be thinking, Wait a minute: a professor came to his student’s apartment, for dinner – for any reason? How did that happen?
Yep, he did. And there’s a wee bit o’ backstory to the how did that happen part.
Fall quarter of my sophomore year I took a beginning Creative Writing class. During the last weeks of class its professor, FT, encouraged me to sign up for another CW course, this one taught by HG: You have to apply for this class, by submitting a sample of your writing – check with the English department but really, any of your stories that you submitted in my class will get you in. HG’s class was considered the next step up for those interested in writing fiction, FT told me, and he thought that that was the class for me (It’s obvious you’re no beginner). I thanked FT for his compliment and encouragement, but told him that although his CW class satisfied a requirement and had fit into my schedule – not that I didn’t enjoy every moment! – I didn’t have room in my schedule for another class that either wasn’t required for my major or didn’t satisfy another degree requirement.
But you will have room for it – this class will be taught in the evening, FT countered. He asked me about my major. When I told FT that I was pre-law, [3] he affably ribbed me (You’re a writer, not a lawyer). During the next couple of weeks FT kept asking me if I’d signed up for HG’s class. I knew his persistence in the matter was in fact a compliment, but I didn’t like revealing my financial situation to those whose business it wasn’t. The fourth or fifth time FT asked me if I needed a suggestion as to which story to submit for HG’s class application, I told him the truth. It wasn’t just the class time I had to juggle; I was working to put myself through school. My days were busy with classes and with my two jobs: my official job at the library, at which I worked both day and evening shifts, and my “unofficial” (read: under the table) job, typing term and research papers for other students [4] . And I needed time for my own homework and papers and a sanity-preserving social life….
My teacher’s persistence hit a nerve. I loved writing fiction, and he knew it – what better excuse to take the time to do so than to have a class where it was required? A day or two before the deadline I went to the English department, filled out the very brief application for HG’s class, and gave The Secretary In Charge Of Such Things my sample story. The secretary told me that HG would read the applicants’ stories by a certain date, and that I should check back on that day for the return of my story and the enrollment decision.
My interest in writing was as strong as my dislike of my own typos, as demonstrated in my high school’s journalism class office.
I had not asked FT which of my stories he thought I should use. I decided to submit the one both FT and my CW classmates had voted as “the best,” in a class contest organized by FT. Years later I would look back upon that contest win (which I found somewhat flattering and mostly embarrassing) as my introduction to that most ubiquitous and vile literary publishing practice: contests, for any and everything, on any and every subject (even on the personal and/or demographic characteristic of the writer), so that you – along with any and every writer, it seems – can, eventually, declare yourself to be “an award winning writer.” [5]
Once again, I digress.
Two of my apartment mates, SB and GG, also applied to HG’s class. I assumed that the majority of the applicants would be the Serious Writer® wannabes: pale young men in black turtlenecks who would be submitting their imitative, Cheever/Roth/Updike-styled novel excerpts in which their descriptions of suburban angst, vacant sexual encounters, and hipster misogyny would be mistaken for edgy, clear-eyed commentary on contemporary American mores. I decided to go for something different. Figuring HG would like a reprieve from all the derivative, Great American Novel aspirational prose, I submitted something shorter, and humorous (the story which had won my class’s contest).
When I returned to the English department on the appointed day the secretary flipped through the stack of students’ stories on her desk, handed me my mine, and said that I had not been chosen for the class. I quickly flipped through the pages; my story was unmarked. “Did HG give a note – any feedback, about why he didn’t like my story?” I asked. “No,” she said, “it’s not that he didn’t like it. He didn’t read it.”
“He didn’t even *read* it?” I sputtered. The secretary’s eyes radiated equal parts pity and frustration as she pointed to several other stories in the pile, stories whose paper clips were stretched much further apart than the one holding my manuscript pages together. “He didn’t read those stories, either. All of these” – she gestured at the manuscript in my hand, then at the bulging tomes on her desk – “violated the guidelines.” She reached into a manilla folder on her desk from which she withdrew the guidelines for HG’s class’s story submissions. She placed the paper in front of me and tapped her index finger over the second line of the guidelines, as if trying to gain the attention of a third grader with ADHD. I saw that the guidelines, which I’d not bothered to check, were that stories had to be between 1500 and 4000 words. [6] My story, as per the word count listed in the upper right corner of the title page, was 200 words short.
Part of me was embarrassed that I had been so careless and cavalier; part of me was relieved that I wouldn’t have to do even more time/schedule juggling. Another part of me was soon to become amused beyond expectation, when SB and GG both made it into HG’s class and began relating their experiences therein.
After the first meeting of HG’s class, when SB shared her rundown of her classmates, it turned out I was right about the guys in black turtlenecks. By week two of HG’s class, I’d noticed something else about the attire of another of HG’s students – a something else which both amused and confused me, as it was GG’s…outfits.
As GG left that evening for HG’s class I stopped moiself from asking if she was skipping class and going to a party instead. Week three, there it was again. If this had been happening in modern times the present, I would’ve been surreptitiously taking pictures of her with my cell phone and having a petty giggle about it later with my boyfriend. Instead, by weeks three and four I made sure to invite “witnesses” – select male friends who also knew GG – over to our apartment, 30 minutes or so before GG left for class. Their observations confirmed that it wasn’t just my imagination: no matter what GG had been wearing during the day, she, uh, pimped her ride, as those wacky kids of today say. Translation: she upscaled her clothing and makeup for HG’s class.
I tried to come up with a defense for GG to counter my friends’ snickered theories – which were all variations on the theme that either HG was flirting with/hitting on GG and she was responding to his attentions, or that *she* was the one soliciting her professor’s attention. [7]Maybe it’s…subconscious? But soft-fuzzy, form-fitting sweaters, perfectly coiffed hair, makeup and *lipstick* (this was the late 70s; students didn’t dress up for anything, certainly not for class, and although GG had always spent a lot of time on her hair, there was no other class for which she wore *lipstick*)? Such frills do not unintentionally adorn a person. Subconscious?
Nice try.
When SB would leave for HG’s class she’d look like her normal self (attractive, casually attired, jeans-and-tee student), while GG looked as if she were going to an audition for a glamour camp counselor. And the more stories SB and GG told about HG’s class, the more I squirmed to consider that my witness-friends’ observations might be spot on.
The winter quarter rolled on; then one weekend GG announced that professor HG would be coming to our apartment for dinner later that week. She would make dinner, and she wanted all four of us (SB, moiself, and our fourth apartment mate, LM) to be there. Ummm…okay…? GG was obviously eager to host HG; I tried to be supportive, and feigned enthusiasm even as I wondered why, after full day’s work (or maybe not; I didn’t know HG’s schedule), a grown-ass professor would want to spend time (and have to eat an amateurishly cooked dinner) with four undergraduates…. Ah, yes. Make that, four twenty-year-old *female* undergraduates.
Moiself’s curiosity was stoked; I no longer needed to feign interest in meeting SB’s and GG’s professor. Assuming my cultural anthropologist mode throughout the before/during/after dinner banter, I spent the evening taking mental notes more than I participated in the conversation. [8] Oh, did I mistakenly type, conversation? It was more of a presentation, just short of a lecture, from HG. HG was obviously used to and expectant of female adoration. He evidently and thoroughly enjoyed holding court, attempting to impart his…what was he attempting to impart? Yeah, okay, he’s been to so many Esalen Institute and other Big Sur retreats he’s lost count, but how indiscreet can he be to think that we are interested in his opinion of Joan Baez’s sexual preferences? Every story he told practically megaphoned,
Can you believe how cool I am, who I’ve rubbed shoulders
(and other body parts) with; what I have seen and done…
and here I am, in *your* apartment, you lucky lasses !
HG was SB’s and GG’s teacher. What did he teach that night? Although I found HG’s demeanor and anecdotes jaw-droppingly pretentious at the time, my recollection of them did serve me, eventually. Many years later I modeled a character in one of my stories after HG: “Patrick Glasson,” a professor of creative writing. The story’s protagonist, Colleen Kiernan, a student in Glasson’s Advanced Fiction Seminar, incurs Glasson’s thinly disguised wrath by challenging his critiques, not being deferential to him, and mostly by being different from the rest of the graduate students in his class, the “pretty young things and scowling young men” who either worshipped Glasson or feared him. In this excerpt, Colleen approaches Glasson at the end of the class to discuss one of her stories.
…. Glasson tossed Colleen’s manuscript on top of his desk. “What is this?”
Colleen Kiernan fingered the hollow between her collarbones. “The title is on the first page.”
The professor snorted. “So it is.”
Pretty young things and scowling young men gathered their papers and book packs. Colleen’s Seminar in Advanced Fiction comrades scuttled off to their three o’clock classes, pretending not to notice that, once again, their guru and his apostate were at his desk, at odds.
“It’s unfinished, obviously. You said initial drafts were acceptable if…”
“I should have chosen a smaller facility. A class of thirteen hardly fills this cavernous hall, which might explain the echo. I hear myself reiterating our group’s paradigm — our mantra, if you will. If you want to be ordinary, write ordinary.” Professor Glasson exhaled lustily. “No academic preparation is needed for mainstream publication. There are a plethora of How to Write A Damn Fine Novel tutorials. Check the trade magazines.”
“Check the trades.” Colleen feigned writing a memo to herself. “Almost forgot that one.” She set her briefcase on Glasson’s desk, and caught the glint in his bleary eyes. He made no attempt to mask his disdain for the tatty brown canvas attaché Colleen favored over the jewel-toned, Gore Tex shoulder bags that were the totes of choice for pretty young things.
“As I was saying, you said drafts were…”
“This is no class for the conventional. What I have been saying, what they are saying…” Glasson tapped his hirsute finger on the stack of books atop his desk, “is as profound as it is simple. Tell the stories that need telling.” Glasson steepled his fingertips in front of his nose. “If you’d been paying attention you’d have picked up at least the concept of narrative nuance. Post-Joycean streams of interior monologue do not a nuance make.”
Narrative nuance? Hard to discern these past weeks, over the thunderous crash of names dropping from lofty, literary heights. The adventures of Patrick Glasson, erstwhile Swingin’ Sixties Author and B-list celebrity. How many names fell from the Big Sur retreat, where our hero encountered a celebrated folk singer from yon times, and discovered that the angelic soprano was a lesbian predator who pursued pretty young things with banshee-like ferocity?….We mustn’t forget our hero’s dialogue with the bards frequenting a Bay Area pub notorious for its clientele of IRA sympathizers, said pub having been named for an exploit of his, recorded in his first novel, in which he, his third wife, and a gaggle of second generation Beats revitalized San Francisco’s waning sex-for-poetry scene.
Reverent gazes, front and center. Imagine the thrill of being Him, back then.
Cutting to the chase: moiself found HG to be the most pompous, preening, gossipy, arrogant, name-dropping lech I’d ever met. He was blatantly “after” GG; his practiced air of seduction gave me the impression that he’d pursued other females in his CW classes and would continue to do so. The charm and panache he oozed seemed habitual; thus, he even (if ever-so-briefly) focused his powers of seduction on LM and moiself [9] after he caught LM shooting me a sympathetic eye roll when I failed to sufficiently mute my WTF snort at the end of one of HG’s I-did-this-really-cool-thing/know-these-really-cool-people stories. And by trying to win LM and I over, HG revealed his cards: he was one of *those* kind of men. Those Kind Of Men generally view and deal with womenfolk in one of three ways. There are women they want to fuck, women they don’t want to fuck, and women who remind them of their (or other people’s) mothers. HG wasn’t sexually interested in LM or moiself ; still, we were females, and had presented him with a challenge by indicating that we were in not in awe of his mere presence nor dazzled by his attentions.
What better way to secure the attentions of Pretty Young Things® who have an honest interest in creative writing than by telling them that he, a Published Author ® , thought that they had potential as a writer? HG essentially broadcasted that modus operandi. My feminist sensibilities were both annoyed and embarrassed by GG’s evident hero-worship…and a part of my heart ached for her. GG had asked me to read several of the stories she’d written for HG’s class assignments. I honestly liked the majority of what she showed me, even as I cringed on her behalf to imagine what HG was saying to her – how, in so many words and/or gestures and body language, he was giving her the impression that it was getting into her prose, and not into her pants, which interested him the most.
I hadn’t thought of that HG story in some time. Today we have more information regarding gender exploitation and what in people’s backgrounds and circumstances makes them vulnerable to abuse (or to being the abuser). I wish I’d had a more nuanced understanding of the situation, other than what went through my mind at the time, when I was concurrently concerned for and judgmental of a friend (“HG is a lecherous douchebag; why doesn’t GG see it?!”).
The MeToo movement brought the HG story to mind, and had me briefly wondering: if HG were still alive, would he be subject to scrutiny and outing from former students? Or maybe…whether or not HG offered grades/privileges for sexual attention, maybe he was just a run of the mill/par for the course, approaching middle-age, narcissistic skirt-chaser, unaware of and/or unconcerned with the power imbalance dynamics and ethical violations inherent in pursuing his female students?
( Taslima Nasrin, Bangladeshi author, physician, civil rights and freethought and feminist activist, living in exile since 1994,
after receiving repeated death threats from Islamists and Al Qaeda-linked extremists. )
* * *
May you be able to speak your mind sans death threats; May you have no heroes to worship; May you always remember to check the *#!?%#* guidelines (geesh!); …and may the hijinks ensue.
[4] Looking back, I should have charged so much more for typing the papers for those students whose handwriting was practically illegible (surprisingly, they were mostly engineering majors, not pre-med).
[5] I lampooned the phenomena in one of the few non-fiction pieces I’ve published, the essay, “You Can Be (Or Already Are) An Award-Winning Writer!” One editor to whom I submitted the essay said he liked it very much and wanted to publish it, but was overruled by his fellow journal editors, and because of that he felt he should warn me that “this will be impossible to publish — everyone (as in, literary journals and magazines) has a contest !!! and they do not have a sense of humor about that…or themselves….” Despite his warning I kept submitting the piece, and it was published twice, once heavily edited to remove much of the contest-related snark, and the second time in its original form.
[6] Or the range may have been 1200 – 4500… I can’t remember the exact numbers, only that in my rush to be concise and clever I’d forgotten to check the guidelines.
[7] One of them “asked around,” he told me, and had heard that HG had a reputation for…that.
[9] Although not for a second did I think he would have been interested in us.
[10] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
Active, reliable, sarcastic, affectionate, bipedal, cynical optimist, writer, freethinker, parent, spouse and friend, I am generous with my handy supply of ADA-approved spearmint gum and sometimes refrain from humming in public.
