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The Government Department I’m Not Hating On

January 31, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Oregon, politics, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Government Department I’m Not Hating On

Department Of Realization/Appreciation Of The Day
Sub-Department Of The Calm Before The Complaints

The juices from a roasting butternut squash, when they spill onto the roasting tray and caramelize, produce an absolutely, mouth-liquidingly, soothing, delicious aroma.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Phrases Religious And/Or
Other Well-Meaning People ® Folks Need To Retire

Dateline:  last Thursday; sushi lunch with friend CC.

After discussing and solving the problems of the universe (which we are wont to do   [1]  ), CC and moiself  shared Going To The DMV After Not Having Had To Do So In Ages stories.  My sojourn to the infamous Department Most Vilified  was to get my Real ID driver’s license; hers was to have the name of her recently deceased husband, SC, removed from the title to her car.  Her story won.   [2]

The DMV clerk asked CC why she was having SC’s name removed from her car’s title.  CC told her that SC had died, and the clerk replied,

 “Oh, I’m so sorry – there but for the grace of god go I.”

 

 

Oh my, Ms. Clerky McClerkface. Your reaction to someone telling you her husband is dead is, essentially, expressing relief that it wasn’t your husband who had died? 

Yeah, sure – the difference between your two circumstances is “grace” – i.e., the benevolence (or..er…not) of a capricious god. That’s probably it: an all-powerful, all-knowing   [3] deity said to its deity self, back in November, “Hmm, whose husband shall I kill today – the DMV clerk’s, or CC’s?”

There but for the grace of god go I.   How was CC – how is anyone –  supposed to respond to crap  a-perhaps-well-intended-but-still-ham-fisted-banality  like that?. 

 Yeah…that must be it…um…thanks.?

My friend appended her story with the strong suggestion that  “Christians need to retire” those tone-deaf aphorisms.  Yep.

There but for the grace of god go I.  That trite, emotionally lame proverb is likely meant, by its utterer, to express humility and gratitude, and acknowledgment that one’s circumstances could be different and that outside factors –  like a god’s “grace” ( ?!?!?! ) – play a role in one’s successes and losses.

Achtung, religious believers and/or anyone who’s ever slung  There but for the grace of god go I  to a fellow human being:  Is that how you respond to and/or think about tragedies and misfortunes – that shit falls on some people and not on others due to the whims (“grace”) of a deity?  And if you *don’t* mean that, please stop saying, There but for the grace of god go I  and other, equally so-not-comforting “comfort phrases” without thinking about the meanings and implications behind those clichés. 

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Speaking Of The DMV….

When speaking of the DMV most people add a bit of cursing, as well.  It’s an easy gripe – a cheap dig – really, to rag on the DMV, which frequently tops the list of American’s most vilified government services.  But there is a case made for us to chill out regarding (at least some of) our complaints, via recognizing the egalitarianism of DMV inconveniences.

 

 

Think about it, Mr. Spock.  In nearly every other aspect of life the wheels of bureaucracy can be greased – or bypassed altogether for a sci-fi worthy transporter – if you have enough money and/or status and/or connections.  Food, housing, education, entertainment, defense attorneys – the more $$ you have, the better ___ (y’all name it) you get.  The DMV is a shining (if admittedly, sloth-like    [4]  )  exception.

“We are living in one of the most unequal periods in modern history…. Wealthy interests have an outsize influence on our politics and our lawmaking. Corporations can buy more political influence than voters can demand for regular people. Whenever you see a radically unfit candidate running for office, you can usually find a wealthy donor making that person’s campaign viable….

This stratification is everywhere — fast passes on toll roads, exclusive access at amusement parks, so-called black car premiums on ride-share apps, private dining clubs, fast lanes for loyal customers. Americans increasingly act like public spaces are for suckers because they can pay for exclusivity instead.

The D.M.V. is so hated because it does not make status distinctions. You can’t pay to separate yourself from the masses.  Everyone has to search the same cumbersome websites for the right forms. You have to compete for an appointment or show up early, whether you have a high net worth or a negative bank balance.  Best of all, everybody has to wait her turn.  It is inconvenient, but everyone is equally inconvenienced….

Hating on the D.M.V. is also socially acceptable because of who often works at the D.M.V.  Women and people of color disproportionately work in the public sector. The D.M.V. is one of the few places where privileged people — especially privileged white people — will ever encounter a woman of color with unquestionable authority.

The D.M.V. is a beacon of equality in this country.  Celebrate the place where you can watch a celebrity fill out the same forms that you do.  We should revel in the fact that there is no express lane for beautiful, rich people to renew their licenses.  When you sit in those hard chairs waiting for your number to appear on a screen, you should be delighted that no one else is sitting in a cushier chair.”

( excerpts, my emphases, from UNC professor and New York Times columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom’s article,
People Hate on the DMV.  But It’s Great.  [5] )

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Musings While Taking The Train Up To Seattle
To Visit My Swenadian Friends   [6] 

My reflections had nothing to do with either my Swenadian friends or Seattle, but were sparked by the sight of a train employee in his Amtrak uniform, walking down the aisle of the train car, escorting a man in a suit and tie to his seat in another train car.  This was not long after I had visited the Seattle Asian Art Museum, where I enjoyed, among many other exhibits, the paintings of the regalia of ancient emperors and soldiers.

For some reason moiself  began thinking about how our clothing (including footwear and hats) simultaneously covers what we are, yet also displays who we are…or, often, rather, indicates who we seem to be or aspire to be, including what cultural groups (cultural, religious, political, professional) we wish to be identified with.

Uniforms are not worn only by those in the military, or in certain occupations where attire is specified, e.g., hospital workers; restaurant waitstaff, Mormon missionaries …

 

 “Even if our skin isn’t ‘white and delightsome’     [7]
we can still wear these delightsome white shirts!”    [8]

 

We civilians often have our own uniforms of choice, but because we (think we) have a choice of what we wear we don’t consider what we wear to be our uniform, or costume.  Some of us pay more attention to being put together, whether for work or play; others do the humble brag of ,  “I don’t care about what I wear. I just throw on the nearest clean jeans and T-shirt,” discounting the fact that the white lie claim of nonchalantly donning jeans and tees is just as much our own uniform as that of our coworker who wears the designer outfit with meticulously matched accessories.

 

“This old thang?  Somethin’ I jes threw on.”

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thoughts Of The Week     [9]

“Atheism     [10]   offers us the comfort of knowing that we can shape our own lives, and don’t have to rest our fate in the hands of a god whose ways can at best be described as ‘mysterious.’  It offers the comfort of not having to wonder what we did wrong, or why we’re being punished or tested, every time something bad happens.  It offers the comfort of experiencing the world as shaped by a stable and potentially comprehensible set of physical laws, rather than by the capricious whim of a creator who’s theoretically loving but in practice is moody, short-tempered, and wildly unpredictable.”
( American author, blogger, speaker Greta Christina,
Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing to Do with God )

“You have two lives – the second begins when you realize you only have one.”
(Attributed to Confucius)

“What happens when you die?  I believe in Frisbeetarianism –
your soul flies up on the roof and gets stuck there.”
( Anonymous)

 

Another flying disc on its way to the afterlife.

 

*   *   *

May you remember that There without the grace of god goes…nothing;
May you appreciate the ultimate equality of your DMV inconveniences;
May you begin living your second life;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] If only the universe would listen.

[2] It wasn’t a competition, but had it been, hands down, she wins.

[3] By deity definition.

[4] But then, so are the lines at any store’s or business’s customer service/complaint/return centers.

[5] From the Don’t Tell My Friends, But…  series, in which the NYT asked their columnists to write about what everyone else is wrong about.

[6] My Canadian-Swedish friends had traveled from Sweden to Seattle to see their daughter and SIL and their first grandbaby.

[7] “ As of Friday, Dec. 6, the Mormon Church has officially renounced the doctrine that brown skin is a punishment from God.  In the Book of Mormon, (not the musical but the actual sacred text) dark skin is a sign of God’s curse, while white skin is a sign of his blessing. The book tells of a conflict between two lost tribes of Israel, the Lamanites and Nephites, who journeyed to the New World and made their home in Mesoamerica. The Lamanites sinned against God, and “because of their iniquity. …the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5:21). Later, when Lamanites became Christians, “their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites” (3 Nephi 2:15)….  Over the years, ordinary Mormons and church leaders have struggled with their (scripture’s) racist heritage. One racist passage in the scripture—2 Nephi 30:6 —has simply been fixed by Mormon authorities. Originally reading that conversion to Christianity creates a “white and delightsome people,” in 1981 the Church adopted a variant that now reads, “a pure and delightsome people.”   (  “Mormon Church finally says dark skin is not a sign of God’s curse “  12-12-13 Valeria Terico, alternet )

[8] Righteous Black people will become white (excerpts, my emphases “Black People and Mormonism, Wikipedia)

Early church leaders taught that after death and resurrection everyone in the celestial kingdom (the highest tier of heaven) would be “white in eternity.”[42][43] They often equated whiteness with righteousness, and taught that God made his children white in his own image.[44]: 231 [45][43] Smith reported that in his vision, Jesus had a “white complexion” and “blue eyes” – a description confirmed in another reported vision by follower Anson Call.[46][47] A 1959 report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that most Utah Mormons believed that “by righteous living, the dark-skinned races may again become white and delightsome.”[48] The church also taught that the skin of white apostates would darken, and in the temple endowment ceremony (until at least the 1960s) Satan was said to have black skin.[17]: 28 [49]

Several Black Mormons were told that they would become white. Hyrum Smith told Jane Manning James that God could give her a new lineage, and promised her in his patriarchal blessing that she would become “white and delightsome”.[38]: 148  In 1836, Elijah Abel was similarly promised that he would “be made … white in eternity”.[2]: 38  Darius Gray, a prominent Black Mormon, was told that his skin color would lighten.[50] In 1978, apostle LeGrand Richards said that the curse of dark skin for wickedness and the promise of white skin through righteousness applied only to Native Americans, and not to Black people.[1]: 115 

[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

[10] I like GC’s sentiments, but differ re the use of atheist with the ism.  There is no ism, as in, a distinctive doctrine, cause, or theory, in being identified as an atheist.  There are no atheist creeds or tenets or rites. Atheists may be conservative and liberal and progressive and socialists; they may be peaceniks or war hawks, love/hate sports, the arts….  All atheists have in common is a lack of belief in theism, which is “belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in one god as creator of the universe, intervening in it and sustaining a personal relation to his creatures.” (Oxford Languages dictionary). 

The Black Armband I’m Not Wearing

January 24, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, freethought/humanism, friends, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, school, science, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Black Armband I’m Not Wearing

Can I get a size to fit the entire country?

 

The title of this blog refers to the events of four days past.  This year Monday January 20 was also Inauguration Day, which stole the spotlight from the day which should have been solely devoted to an American hero, Martin Luther King Jr.  Instead, that martyred champion of human rights had to share his legacy’s attention with a traitor to democracy and decency, who, as longtime readers know, cannot be referred to by name in this space.

Several weeks ago I had put a reminder on my calendar, to ask/remind civilized Americans like-minded friends to wear a black armband on 1/20/25.  I’ve donned that symbol of bereavement when my father died, when John Lennon was murdered, and on a few select occasions when I thought a visible sign of mourning was appropriate  [1]

Instead, moiself  tried to channel a variation of the adage  (likely Persian in origin but variants are found across historical/cultural wisdomb literature) which I used to reassure my (now deceased) mother during hard times:   This too shall pass.

 

I did not assure my mother with the kidney stone variation of the adage.

 

This doesn’t mean that I think all will be hunky dory.  The Cheetos Mussolini and his minions will put on a massive shit show for US all, US capitalized as in, the United States.  I know that other countries have survived a range of despots, but doing so comes at a great price, especially to the less powerful.  I also know that such survival will require diligence and vigilance… But then, doesn’t it always?

We have had leaders of decency, integrity, intelligence, equanimity; still, even during the terms of “No Drama Obama”  there could be, ultimately, no relaxing.  The festering turds of racism and Right Wing Fuckery were stewing in their resentment, fermenting and fomenting their schemes, throwing up obstacles wherever they could, waiting for their chance to crawl out from under their rocks. What was that quote, “The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance’?   [2]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of I Started Off Somewhat Okay….

But not so far under the skin moiself  is mad mad mad mad angry-ass mad, at this debacle of denial from so many US citizens.  I can’t adequately portray my rage and dejection without the use of repetitive, explicit, scatological references…so pictures will have to do, for now.  Pictures, and an excerpt from my blog post from four years ago,  wherein my despair at that time not long after the 2020 presidential election was that, although the Biden-Harris team won, it shouldn’t have been as close as it was.

( excerpts, The Reasons I’m Not Fully Getting Into ):

You must be familiar with how political and human rights leaders call for unity and try to appeal to our so-called better natures when the latest incidents of police brutality, sexism and misogyny, and the country’s history of systemic racism are revealed:

“This is not who we are.”
“We are better than this.”

You’ve heard those phrases before; you’ll hear them again. You may even believe them. But I’m gonna shove my elbow down the throat of the next person who says that within earshot of moiself.  Because, guess what?  This *is* who we are – at least, nearly half of the voting “we.”

At least 73 million of us are not “better than this,” because 73 million Americans were able and willing to set aside, ignore, or explain away the actions, rhetoric and policies of #45 which have fostered an unprecedented rise in displays of hatred, bigotry, and violence.

  “Hate crimes have surged nearly 20 percent during the administration of President Donald Trump, according to a new FBI report on hate crime statistics. The report also shows that hate-motivated murders, largely committed by white supremacists, spiked to their highest number in 28 years.”
( “Hate Crimes Under Trump Surged Nearly 20 Percent Says FBI Report,”
Newsweek, 11-16-20 )

…It haunts me – the voice of an Otherwise Nice-Sounding Man I heard being interviewed (on a radio show) before the election, who said he struggled with his decision.  Despite ONSM‘s misgiving about the “other stuff,” ONSM chose #45 because ONSM‘s stock portfolio had risen.

Other stuff.  As in, #45’s history of sexual harassment and bullying, encouraging and abetting racial and social inequity, white supremacy, racism, homophobia, transphobia, & xenophobia; coddling (and imitating) dictators; collusion with Russia & obstruction of Justice, corruption and nepotism and ‘birtherism’ lies and lies lies and more lies…   [3]

If you’ve a strong stomach, you can view (or download a pdf of) the unfortunately-not-yet-complete, “Listing of Trump’s Atrocities,” compiled via years of diligence of the non-profit publisher, McSweeney’s:

 Early in President Trump’s term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, and crimes, and it felt urgent then to track them, to ensure these horrors — happening almost daily — would not be forgotten. This election year, amid a harrowing global health, civil rights, humanitarian, and economic crisis, we know it’s never been more critical to note these horrors, to remember them, and to do all in our power to reverse them.
Various writers have compiled this list during the course of the Trump administration. Their work has been guided by invaluable journalistic resources, including WTFJHT, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and other sources….

Other stuff.  That #45 supporter, and millions like him, claim “This is not who we are,” yet vote for someone  Who  Is  Exactly  That.  And that’s just as bad – no, it’s worse.

The leaders aren’t the problem; they rarely are.  Leaders can do nothing without followers, plus those who claim not to be followers, but are Bystanders and Overlookers.

Leaders can do nothing without followers.

We don’t give that fact the consideration and responsibility it merits.

Charles Manson personally killed no one at the Tate-LaBianca murder scenes; he got his followers to butcher those seven people for him.

Leaders can do nothing without followers.  Perhaps you’ve read about the protestations post-WWII from Italians who claimed not to have supported the policies of their Prime minister, Benito Mussolini, and who thus objected to being called fascists?

“The concentration camps and mass killings of civilians in Yugoslavia and Greece – those happened outside our borders; we don’t really know about that.  And, yeah, we, like, kinda, sorta, maybe knew that here, in our own country, Mussolini suppressed his opponents, dissenters, and social outsiders via physical assaults, imprisonment, economic deprivation, yada yada yada…. But, he made the trains run on time.”   [4]

“This is not who we are.”

It sucks, massively, to realize the contrary.

And so my thoughts still go to dark places, dragged down by the reality of the complicity of millions of my citizens, plus this HOLY CRAP realization:

Joe and Kamala are stand-up, intelligent, competent, compassionate people, but yikes – look at how many problems they have to fix.  What looms largest, exacerbated by #45, are the worldwide effects of global warming.  Biden and Harris accept the obvious, hard truths laid out by science, but without a change in the hearts and minds of Republicans in congress, will we have a repeat of the Obama years, when Republicans’ only policy mandate was to counter everything he tried to do?  Will they continue to stamp their metaphorical toddlers’ feet and tantrum their way through Biden’s term: “NO,  I  WON’T  WON’T  WON’T  WON’T  PLAY  WITH  YOU  AND  YOU  CAN’T  MAKE  ME.”
*   *   *

End of excerpt.  And as for the excerpt’s closing question…it wasn’t meant to be rhetorical, but yeah and of course, that’s just what the GOP did.  And here we are.

 

*   *   *

Department Of Back To The Graphics Of Primal Screams

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Quote Of The Week…

…and hopefully not quote of the century:    [5]

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Why History Sucks

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of More Primal Screams Via Graphics

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Simple Pleasures Amidst The Impending Calamities

Moiself  gets an almost inexplicably blissful pleasure from the ivy lights around our kitchen window.  MH hung them up and put them on a timer, so that they turn on without me thinking to turn them on/plug them in…I know I’ll get used to it at some point, but for now, for the past two weeks, whenever they do, it makes me feel…that some things will continue to be a source of tranquility in the world.

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Other Things That Give Me Hope

 

attributed to “Childless Cat Lady”

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

 

*   *   *

May you be able to identify the most dangerous parasite by sight;
May you find your own version of an ivy lights beacon of hope;
May you remember that when you are a follower you empower your leader;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] If only to clue in strangers as to why moiself  might be in a bad mood and/or snap at them for seemingly non- sequitur-ial or inappropriate reasons.

[2] Generally attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but probably a variant on another utterance by another of the Founding Fathers peers, Wendell Phillips, who was quoting an Irish lawyer.  The Price of Liberty?  Eternal Vigilance.

[3] An extensive list may be found at McSweeney’s: The Complete Listing So Far of Trump’s Atrocities,

[4] Except that, he didn’t.  Like many dictators, Mussolini “…liked to take credit for everything that went right in Italy, even when it didn’t go that well at all. He was particularly fond of saying he was responsible for successful, large-scale public works projects, such as the railroad system.”  (Did Mussolini Really Keep the Trains Running on Time? history.howstuffworks.com  )

[5] Although, what did Katniss do?  She fought on; she did not give up.

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

The Microscope I’m Not Looking Through

January 17, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Isms (religion), politics, radio & podcasts, school, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Microscope I’m Not Looking Through

Department Of Good Advice For A Good Week

Dateline:  Monday, 6:15 am-ish, listening to The Daily Calm   [1],  a ten minute guided meditation from my Calm meditation app.  The morning’s topic was envy.

“Envy emerges when we devote attention to the many things we don’t have.  By diverting attention to the many things we *do* have, we invite happiness…

This sounds easy, but we rarely admit to ourselves that we are envious….  It’s helpful to consciously challenge our distorted perceptions, remembering that things are never what they seem.Those who seem to have it all almost certainly have suffering we don’t see….

Envy is often the result of an incomplete perspective.  As Josh Billings said, ‘Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.’
So, next time you find yourself fixated on the narrowness of (what you think you ) lack, widen your view.”

 

This is  a wide enough view for me, for now.

*   *   *

Department Of A Question For The New Year…

The question I have for the new year   [2]    is a question that, in one of my many pipe dreams, would find answers in the new year.  The question concerns educational reform (elementary through university), but it could be applied to almost anything.

An introductory given: it is impossible, of course, to pretend you don’t know something or haven’t experienced something when you do/you have.  Still, what if you tried your best to redesign something as if it hadn’t existed before?  As in, you would be designing it for the circumstances, knowledge, and culture of the present, and not the past.

 


A 100+ year old idea of what a school of the future might look like.   [3]

 

“Sarah Stein Greenberg runs Stanford’s d.school, which teaches design as a mode of problem solving. She and (PIMA podcast host Steve Levitt) talk about what makes her field different from other academic disciplines, how to approach hard problems, and why brainstorms are so annoying.”
(introduction to, and the fololowing excerpts from, How to Have Good Ideas,
People I  Mostly Admire podcast, 1-3-25; my emphases )

Steve Levitt ( PIMA podcast host ):
“It’s especially interesting for me to be talking to you right now because I’m in the middle of a big design project, trying to create and launch a radical new high school in partnership with Arizona State University….”

Stein Greenberg:
“Tell me what you mean when you say radical.
What is going to be radically different?”

Levitt:
“When I say radical, I mean we really are turning upside down almost every accepted piece of how we do high school right now. There’ll be relatively limited synchronous learning, essentially no cases where there’s a teacher up in front of 30 students lecturing. The students will have a lot more autonomy in deciding what they study and when they study. We’re moving towards a mastery model and away from a traditional grading model. Most of what we do in high school today is — we do it because we did the same thing 20 years ago, or 50 years ago, or 100 years ago. And so, what would high school look like if you started over? That’s really the premise we’re coming from.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Ageist And Cultural Expectations

We are in the midst of having bathroom remodel work done, and also replacing our old water heater.  The plumbers worked in sets of two…we’ve had to have a couple of callbacks.  They are young; this is good; trade skills need to be learned and passed on to a new generation.  Still, I told MH last week that moiself  “…would feel better, as in more confident of their skills, if instead of two guys who look like they’re still learning to shave they were one big older dude with a potbelly and sagging pants.  I mean, how can they be plumbers? – I haven’t see their…you know…professional credentials.”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Is There Really Such A Thing
As Too Much Information?

Another story related to the bathroom remo. As we (MH and I) are getting closer to having the old mold-infested shower replaced, there are decisions to be made.

A Haiku For A Catchy Mantra
Watchwords; catchphrases;
Slogans; mottos – it’s fun, to
concoct a new one.

That new mantra/words to live by we concocted is our determining factor for the height of the pony wall for our new MB shower.   For those ignorant in such matters,   [4]   a pony wall is a partial wall separating or dividing two spaces. In the context of our shower, the pony wall will support one side of a partial glass wall.  Heights for a shower pony wall can vary; they are typically from three to four feet tall, ala the one pictured below.

 

 

Measurements are set for our new shower’s wall panels and glass door and floor. Before proceeding, our project manager told us, we needed to choose the pony wall height.

MH and moiself  discussed the fact that the shower’s pony wall, topped with glass to make one complete side of the shower, is directly across from our large bathroom window, which faces our neighbor’s bathroom window. We’re getting new window shades but they will take a few weeks to arrive; until then, the bathroom windows are bare.  Thus, part of our pony wall height calculations included what we figured we can live with, re our neighbors possible “seeing” us when we’re in the shower, sans window shades.   [5]

We’re both not too concerned as per our chestal areas (as the SNL Church Lady might put it) possibly being on view; but we would prefer privacy below the waist.  Thus, we – I keep using the royal we but really and truly, this is one time that moiself  was not solely to blame credit – decided our pony wall height requirement could be summed up thusly:

Boobs, not pubes.

Catchy, y’all gotta admit.

 

 

Also it sounds (to me at least) like it could be a classic three word slogan, something chanted during a political protest march, or boldly proclaimed on a sign ( “Boobs, not pubes!” ).  About what issue, or cause….?  To be decided.

Hell yeah, we  ( read: moiself ) shared this with our project manager.

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

“If, as the true believers claim, the word ‘gospel’ means good news, then the good news for me is that there is no gospel, other than what I can define for myself, by observation and conscience. As a freethinking human being, I have come not to favor or fear religion, but to face and fight it as an impediment to civilized advancement.”

( Steve Benson, Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, ex-Mormon, grandson of
Mormon president Ezra Taft Benson, as quoted in “From Latter-Day Saint
to Latter Day Ain’t” (Freethought Today, December 1999)   [7]

 

*   *   *

May we remember to widen our view;
May you remember to check a tradesperson’s…credentials;
May you come up with an inspiring three word slogan;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] “These short sessions focus on different aspects of mindfulness and introduce new concepts for both beginner and advanced meditation students.”

[2] I have many, many questions for and about the new year.  One at a time….

[3] “The Public Domain Review presents ‘a series of futuristic pictures by Jean-Marc Côté and other artists issued in France in 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1910. Originally in the form of paper cards enclosed in cigarette/cigar boxes and, later, as postcards, the images depicted the world as it was imagined to be like in the year 2000.” Teaching&learninginhighered.org

[4] Like moiself , before we undertook a bathroom redo.

[5] Or with window shades which we’ve forgotten to pull down.  Stuff happens.

[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.   No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.”  Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org

[7] “I was on track to eternal Mormon stardom, reserved especially for faithful men in a church run by men,” Benson has written.  He and his wife Mary Ann, who have four children, left the Mormon Church in a highly publicized break in 1993, “citing disagreement over its doctrines on race, women, intellectual freedom and fanciful storytelling,” as he has written.  Benson lists among the benefits of leaving religion: “Another day off, a 10-percent raise and getting to choose his own underwear.”  ( excerpts from Freethought Today profile, 1-2-25, compiled by Annie Laurie Gaylor, © Freedom From Religion Foundation )

The Content/Trigger Warnings I Am No Longer Posting

January 10, 2025

Robyn Parnell Uncategorized , , , , , , Comments Off on The Content/Trigger Warnings I Am No Longer Posting

… At least not seriously.

 

Trigger Warning

 

Surprise (well, not really)!  Turns out, content/trigger warnings are, themselves, triggering.

Just a wee sample of what be going down re this subject:

What if Trigger Warnings Don’t Work?
New psychological research suggests that trigger warnings do not reduce negative reactions to disturbing material,
and may even increase them.
( The New Yorker   )

 

 

I’d been wondering about that – as in, wondering when someone would get around to studying the downsides of that which is often prefaced (or later appended) with They meant well, and  It was done with good intentions.

“…the value of trigger warnings has been hotly debated. Proponents argue that they serve to inform and educate consumers of the content they are about to consume. They argue that people, particularly those who have suffered a traumatic experience in their past, will be better able to handle difficult content if they are prepared in advance and are given the choice to engage or not.

Opponents argue that trigger warnings coddle and infantilize adults, and that they facilitate avoidance and/or inflate morbid and prurient curiosities, thus increasing rather than decreasing emotional turmoil and anxiety. In promoting avoidance of challenging material, opponents argue, trigger warnings also run counter to the clinical literature, which shows that trauma is best overcome through exposure rather than avoidance…..

… a meta-analysis of the literature on trigger warnings…indicated that warnings were ineffective at their proposed goals….  The results show, in effect, that…. Trigger warnings are neither necessary nor devastating for those who receive them. ‘Existing research on content warnings, content notes, and trigger warnings…suggests that they are fruitless, although they do reliably induce a period of uncomfortable anticipation.’ ”

(excerpts, my emphases, “Trigger Warnings Can Be Triggering:
Recent research questions the utility of trigger warnings.
Trauma: Psychology Today, 4-1-24 )

 

 

Let’s say you are a

* writer; college professor; a stand-up comic; journalist

And you are

* writing an article/giving a lecture on/composing a skit

which mentions assault, and you voluntarily (or are forced to, by an editor; nightclub manager; faculty dean, or some other gatekeeper) post a content warning, ala

( The following article/lecture/performance subject matter
deals with assault, or whatever the ostensible trigger).

What you have done is to guarantee that the intended audience for that content warning – someone who has been assaulted – is now thinking about the fact that they were assaulted, without having the benefit of reading or hearing your material.  Indeed, there may be benefits to them reading or hearing your material, but they’ll never know, because they’ve been warned away from it, AND, because of that warning, they are now thinking about their assault – they’ve been “triggered” – without obtaining different perspective or knowledge about or possible relief from their experience.

Dateline: too many decades ago. I read a book about Saturday Night Live…

 

…maybe this one?

 

…the long running, live sketch comedy-variety show which was then in its infancy.  The book included a couple of scripts for SNL skits that never made it on the air, usually (not always)  [1],  because the director and/or the network censor thought the skit’s humor went “too far.” One memorable ( to moiself ) censored skit was about family and friends in a hospital room, visiting a girl who had been in a coma for some time.  A couple of the visitors brought bouquets of flowers; one visitor, not quite sure what to do, announced to the girl’s parents that he had brought “some moss for her north side.”

I later read a review of that book, which featured an interview with a woman whose daughter was hospitalized in a PVS (persistent vegetative state).  This woman had also read the SNL book, and when she read the script of that girl-in-a-coma skit, she said that she laughed “…for the first time in months.”  Reading about that canceled skit-that-went-too-far/included-jokes-of-questionable-taste was helpful to her, providing some well-needed levity in a life that had turned bleak.  If that book had had a trigger alert, she might have been steered away (“Oops, I better not read this – it might upset me”) from what turned out to be a totally unexpected yet therapeutic form of relief for her.

Arguably some of the more problematic places for content warnings are schools – particularly in university classrooms, where many professors have voiced their own content warnings about what they have become “allowed” to say and teach.

“….The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has also tackled the issue, and it has come down squarely against TW (trigger warnings).

Here are some of the most salient points of the AAUP report:

* The presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual.

* [TW] single out politically controversial topics like sex, race, class, capitalism, and colonialism for attention. … If such topics are associated with triggers, correctly or not, they are likely to be marginalized if not avoided altogether….

* Trigger warnings conflate exceptional individual experience of trauma with the anticipation of trauma for an entire group.

* A trigger warning might lead a student to simply not read an assignment or it might elicit a response from students they otherwise would not have had.

* Some discomfort is inevitable in classrooms if the goal is to expose students to new ideas, have them question beliefs they have taken for granted, grapple with ethical problems they have never considered.

* Trigger warnings reduce students to vulnerable victims rather than full participants in the intellectual process of education.

* The classroom is not the appropriate venue to treat PTSD, which is a medical condition that requires serious medical treatment….”

( Excerpts, “The False Dichotomy of Trigger Warnings”
by Massimo Pigliucci, ITAL The Philosophers’ Magazine  )

 

 

“In 2019, the (Tate) museum warned patrons of the ‘violent’ and ‘challenging’ images at the entrance to an exhibition of 200-year-old works by painter William Blake, known for his then-radical approach to exploring struggles throughout 18th Century England.

In 2020, Tate slapped a ‘sexually explicit content’ warning on an exhibition of illustrations by Victorian-era artist Aubrey Beardsley, best known for his… well, sexually explicit content. It’s the trigger warning equivalent of a ‘contains cream’ label on a gallon of ice cream…..

It is very possible that these attempts to place buffers around art, education and even children’s entertainment are not only useless but counterproductive. A 2020 study published in the journal ITAL Clinical Psychological Science found that trigger warnings offer little to no help in avoiding painful memories and, on the contrary, may actually be harmful for those with associated emotional trauma.

‘Specifically, we found that trigger warnings did not help trauma survivors brace themselves to face potentially upsetting content,’ said Payton Jones, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Harvard. ‘In some cases, they made things worse.’

Trigger warnings also perpetuate a culture of victimhood. Researchers discovered that they seem to increase the extent to which people see trauma as central to their identity – which, in addition to making them insufferable in general, can also worsen the impact of their PTSD.

‘I was surprised that something so small – a few trigger warnings in a short experiment –could influence the way someone views their trauma,’ continued Jones. ‘In our culture, I think we overemphasize how important trauma should be in a person’s life. Trigger warnings are one example of this.’

( excerpts, my emphases, “Top 10 Signs Trigger Warnings Have Gone Too Far”
by Christopher Dale, Listverse; Politics | March 4, 2021 )

 

 

*   *   *

*   *   *

Department Of Why I Like Walking Just Before Sunrise

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of My, That’s A Big One

Dateline: Saturday.  MH and moiself  made a trip up to Winlock, WA to see the  World’s Largest Egg ®. Actually, the trip was to see daughter Belle, who hadn’t been able to get time off from work to spend Christmas with us.  Doing the Google maps thing, MH determined that the lil town o’ Winlock was at a halfway point between where Belle lives in Washington, and when MH discovered that Winlock was also home to a notable Roadside Attraction ® – the  WLE –   that was all the inspiration we needed.  We met Belle In Winlock for lunch, exchanged belated Christmas gifts and had fun playing the new party game she gave us (“Priorities”) while eating some of the worst pizza/pasta ever,  [2]  then checked out the  WLE before bidding our daughter a fond à plus tard and heading back to our respective domiciles.

 

Ah, so this is how they keep the young folks in Winlock.

 

*   *   *

Department Of A Blast From The Past

New Year; new project: taking an excerpt from a past blog, from the same time frame (the second Friday of whatever month).  Perhaps moiself  will like this enough that it will turn out to be a regular blog feature for 2025?  Time, and my capacity for reruns, will tell.

This journey down memory lane is related to the most convincing reason a  YOU-of-all-people-should-write-a-blog-why-aren’t-you-writing-a-blog?!?!?!   [3]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [4]   as to why I should be writing a blog: a blog would serve as a journal of sorts for my life.  Journal/diary-resistant moiself  would have some sort of a record, or at least a random sampling, of what was on my mind – and possibly what was on the nation’s mind – during a certain period of time.

Now I can, for example, look back to the second Friday of a years-ago January to see what I was thinking. (or as MH putc it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 1-12-18 ( The Bullet List I’m Not Embracing ).

 

 

We’ve discovered that opportunities for the gathering of anesthesia-induced babbling memories do not fade with age,    [5]   and are perhaps even more enjoyable when your children are young adults. Last Friday afternoon, Belle underwent a procedure which required general anesthesia. After MH and I were allowed to see her in the post-op recovery room, I did not record her ramblings (Belle was with it enough to object to that), but did manage to take a few notes. There are some gems I know I missed, mostly because I just wanted to be present to enjoy the stream of conscious moments caused by her brain only partially connecting with her mouth:

*   “Is there boob PT?
(After MH and I told Belle that the upper floors of the building she was in were dominated by Orthopedic surgeons and PTs -Psychical Therapists.)

*   “It stays on for THREE DAYS.“
Belle pointed to the anti-nausea patch the anesthesiologist had placed on the side of her neck, then lowered her voice to a solemn whisper.  “That’s a lotta days!”

* Belle said the nurses told her she was talking about bear heads (   “Let me tell you about the grizzly bear head…” ), and that they don’t get many people who talk about bear heads.    [6] 

*  “Do you remember when people were, like, in the future, everything will be chrome?  It didn’t happen.  I think they meant stainless steel.”

* Belle: “I’d like to be Spider-Man.”

Moiself: “But you don’t like spiders.”

Belle: “No sir, I do not. But, I appreciate spiders.”

* “Seth Meyers is like a marshmallow, with good hair.”   [7] 

While waiting for the nurse to remove her IV, Belle began to describe to MH and I, with great seriousness, how the cycle of banana mitosis and meiosis indicates that bananas can tell time. The morning after her surgery, I asked Belle if she remembered doing that. She said she didn’t, but that it’s no surprise because,  “Actually, I talk about that a lot.”   [8]

 

Why carry a watch when you can just ask the banana on your head what time it is?

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [9]

“Humanism affirms that people can solve their problems without imagining
supernatural beings; the arts and sciences flourish when ignorance and superstition
are thus overthrown.”

( Joe Nickell, American author, editor, investigator of “paranormal” phenomena,
senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry )

\

*   *   *

May you not be triggered by trigger warnings;
May you enjoy a trip to see a notable roadside attraction;
May you one day be able to tell the time by
consulting the banana on your head;

…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

[1] Sometimes it was just a matter of time – the show ran long in rehearsal and something had to be cut.

[2] Which shall not be mentioned here

[3] I was adamant about not writing a blog…thus, the title of the blog I eventually decided to write.

[4] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[5] This is contingent upon having surgery for something relatively minor, ala wisdom teeth removal.

[6] This one makes sense to me, and probably was not the non sequitur the nurses thought it to be: Belle has prepped stuffed and mounted a grizzly bear head in her work as a docent for her college’s natural history museum.

[7] I likely sparked that comment by mentioning that Seth Meyers was hosting the Golden Globe Awards show.

[8] She’s a Biology major.

[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

The Guest Blog I’m Not De-Publishing

January 3, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, current events, foodie, freethought/humanism, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), politics, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Guest Blog I’m Not De-Publishing

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’s pear tree.   [1]

This will be the last week, until late November, when the next solstice season begins.  Can you identify this week’s guest Partridge?

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of New Year, New Questions

Is it doofuses, or doofi?

 

*   *   *

Department Of New Year’s Day Menu

* Black-eyed peas
* Cornbread
* Collard greens

My New Year’s Day menu once again included a dish featuring black-eyed peas. I have done this for…decades, now.  I do this in honor of my father and his heritage: specifically, his family’s tradition of eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day –  an act of culinary optimism which was supposed to bring good luck and prosperity in the coming year.

 

It’s all a lie.

 

Despite consuming black-eyed peas every New Year’s day, my father’s family remained dirt-poor sharecroppers.    [2]   Every year, as I bring whatever black-eyed pea dish I’m making to my family table, I can’t help but wonder: just once, did a brave soul in my father’s family (possibly his adored, spunky younger sister, Lucile), when presented with yet another bowl of black-eyed peas and the directive to, Eat up, y’all, it’ll bring us good luck in the coming year!, look around at the ramshackle farmhouse and her barefooted siblings  [3]  and mutter,  It still ain’t workin.’

Since the eat-these-things-every-year-for-prosperity thing didn’t do diddly squat, I feel free to mess with the menu.  This year my black-eyed peas were blinged with curry-ish spices, the collards tarted up with with golden raisins/cider vinegar, and instead of cornbread there was a freshly baked sourdough boule (courtesy of MH), the latter pictured in larval form below.

 

 

Oh yeah, and as for the accompanying beverage: go big or go home, before observing Dry January.    [4]

*   *   *

Department Of The Last Great Disappointment For The Old Year…

…which I hope does not turn out to be an ongoing disappointment in the new year…except that it already has.

Moiself  wears her big girl pants most days; I understand that even though organizations are not people   [5]   they *are* composed of people –  human beings who are flawed and make mistakes.  Still, I cringe to think that one of my favorite organizations – one that gets a weekly shout-out from moiself ( in my Freethinkers Thought of the Week ) – has fallen down the you-must-tow-this-ideological-line-or-be-cancelled  rabbit hole…

This ideology-eclipses-all mentality is one of the reasons, in my strong opinion, that otherwise trying-to-be-decent political fence-sitting folk opted for the dark side in the 2024 presidential election.  As I wrote in a previous, post-election keen of anguish blog, ( The Country I’m Not Loving ):

I loathe the use of wedge issues and exploitation of those on the lower end of the power totem to provoke the fear response.   I despise the fact that such tactics are often effective, which is why the ethically-deficient Right uses them.  And as I watched that MAGA ad which ran during the World Series,  [6]   thinking of the wide audience it was playing to, I thought to moiself, re the election:  if Harris (and therefore the USA)  loses, it will be because of things like this.

Things as in, not necessarily that particular issue, but because too many of my well-meaning liberal brethren and sisterthren have shot themselves in the foot with their psychological tone-deafness…and Those People ® who feel lectured to and put upon are exacting some kind of social revenge….

How many times have people felt silenced or intimidated because they didn’t toe the “progressive” political and cultural lines?  Maybe they have questions on certain social issues; maybe there are things they just don’t understand and therefore, instinctively, tend to fear.

Maybe they don’t actually *hate* people of different genders and sexual orientations and ethnicities and religions and social classes and political opinions.  But that’s what they get labeled as ( haters; ____ -phobics ), and then they don’t feel as if they can even voice their questions and concerns in certain situations and when speaking with certain people, because if they don’t use the *correct* terminology of the moment, the focus will be on *how* they asked their questions/offered their opinions, rather than on the content of those questions and opinions.  They will be shamed and lectured to if they “misgender” or “dead-name” or “mis-pronoun”….

And if the actions and attitudes of aggressive Lefties pushes some centrists or moderates more to the Right, then those Lefties dismiss the migration with their purity-testing mantra:  “Well, it’s no loss, they weren’t really allies in the first place.”….

 

 

Dateline:12-27-24.  The day started on an upbeat note: my email inbox contained one of the most thoughtful and well-reasoned guest blog posts from the FFRF (Freedom from Religion Foundation) I’ve recently read.  The article, “Biology is Not Bigotry,” was by evolutionary biologist, pseudoscience critic and FFRF Honorary Board Member Jerry Coyne.  After reading Coyne’s article,  I posted a link to it on FB.

Coyne’s “Biology is Not Bigoty,”,as per his intro which I’ve excerpted here, was written in part to address issues raised and opinions expressed in a previous FFRF Freethought Now article: 

“In the Freethought Now article ‘What is a woman?’, author Kat Grant struggles at length to define the word, rejecting one definition after another as flawed or incomplete. Grant finally settles on a definition based on self-identity: ‘A woman is whoever she says she is. This of course is a tautology….” [7]

Several hours later, my email inbox contained another FFRF blog post, this one attributed to the co-presidents of the FFRF and titled, “Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights.”  And gawd-dammit, I hate to say it, but the woke shit hit the fan.

Yep.  Apparently, someone(s) got offended…

…and Coyne’s article was removed from the FFRF site.   Within a few hours on the same day, Coyne’s article was posted, then removed, then the “apology” response was posted.  It seems that the FFRF, or at least the co-presidents (their bylines are on the apology) fell into the social media trap of instant panic/instant response, instead of taking time for reflection and…consultation (as in, who made the decision to de-publish Coyne’s article?  Was the FFRF Board consulted, and if not, why not?  If the co-presidents unilaterally made the decision, can the Board reverse the decision?).   [8]

I fear the FFRF is sliding down the path which makes it impossible to dialog on controversial issues such as “gender identity,” wherein one side claims there is only one correct position to hold, and that all others who question them – not even oppose, but just have questions – are bigots or ____ (insert the ad hominin attack of the moment).  Ironically, that tactic, which used to be the prime province of religion   [9] – blasphemy! – is now being refined by the Left, to the point of it now is being used by an organization that claims it is  free from religion.  It is batshit crazy makes no sense that the FFRF, whose main mission is fighting to reduce the intrusion into/influence of religion in government, is now censoring science and scientists.  And three scientists  (Coyne, Richard Dawkins, and Steven Pinker) have already resigned as FFRF Honorary Board Members. 

The fucked-up regretful decision to pull Coyne’s article (which was done without notifying him!     [10]  ) and then publish the apology is having WTF ?!?!?! repercussions among freethinkers and humanists.  Moiself  can’t put it better than this freethinker did in her letter to Barker & Gaylor (full text of letter can be found here, in the comments section;  my emphases):

“I’m not sure which disheartens me more: your treatment of Jerry Coyne or your indulgence in religious theatrics. By retracting Coyne’s rebuttal and issuing a public mea culpa embracing trans ideology, you modeled confession and repentance, signaling your virtue at his expense. You also prioritized subjective experience over objective reality—the very problem with religion itself.  This undermines your mission to uphold the separation of church and state.”

 

 

Here is my email response to the FFRF, re their “apology” post:

I had a bad feeling when I saw, in my email inbox, that the second FFRF blog post (first of all, two is unusual; one per day seems to be the norm) was titled, “Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights.”   Ummm, yeah?  As if that was ever in question?  Why the need to repeat the obvious?

Then I read the almost desperate-sounding post.  Oh, dear.

“Publishing this post was an error of judgment, and we have decided to remove it as it does not reflect our values or principles.”

Wait, seriously?  Since when are your values – since when are *our values* (I’m a “lifetime” FFRF member) – not evidence- and science-based?

I take it you refer to Jerry Coyne’s “Biology is Not Bigotry” post?  If so, this action (removing an FFRF Guest Blog from the FFRF site) is highly disappointing, to say the least, and makes me wonder what kind of pressure was exerted to get Coyne’s post “cancelled.”

I am familiar with Coyne’s work, and find it refreshing to have the science behind such a controversial issue addressed, for laypersons, from a rational (as opposed to religious/hysterical) POV – particularly Coyne’s elucidation of gametes and the repeated conflation of sex and gender.   Why was it necessary to remove his post, after you’d posted it with a disclaimer – which, BTW, I’ve always assumed holds true for any guest post- namely, that any one FFRF member does not speak, or think, for all FFRF members?

This makes me fear that the FFRF is letting ideology and politics trump science (and as one of those liberal feminist atheists, I hate to have a reason to use the word “trump” in any form), or will censor any presentation on science on issues that do not toe the line with some activists’ misguided notions of ideological purity.   I too am now concerned about the FFRF diluting its “…its historically twofold mission: educating the public about nontheism and keeping religion out of government and social policies,” and straying into “mission creep.”

Sincerely (and sadly),  Robyn Parnell

 

 

Department Of Make Up Your Own Mind

Here is a link to Coyne’s post, reprinted on the weekly publication Reality’s Last Stand,   [11] with this intro/summary of the brouhaha:

At Reality’s Last Stand, we are deeply committed to fostering free speech, scientific discourse, and intellectual courage—values that are increasingly under siege in today’s polarized climate. It is in this spirit that we are republishing Jerry Coyne’s essay, “Biology is Not Bigotry,” which was originally published on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s (FFRF) website before being abruptly unpublished.

Coyne, an emeritus professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago, critically responded to an article by an FFRF intern that argued, “A woman is whoever she says she is.” Despite receiving approval for publication, Coyne’s scientifically grounded critique was unpublished after the FFRF deemed it inconsistent with their values and worried it may cause readers “distress.” Following this decision, both Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker and evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins also resigned  [12]   from the FFRF’s Honorary Board in protest.

By republishing this essay (with the author’s permission), Reality’s Last Stand reaffirms our commitment to upholding rigorous science, free inquiry, and respectful dialogue. Coyne’s essay stands as a critical defense of biology against pseudoscience and as a reminder of the dangers posed by ideological gatekeeping in science and public discourse.
 (Colin Wright, CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Reality’s Last Stand )

And here is the link to the FFRF’s misguided, IMO, excuse article as to why they de-published Coyne’s article:
(“Freedom From Religion Foundation supports LGBTQIA-plus rights.”). 

 

 

*   *   *  

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [13]

It’s now very common to hear people say, “I’m rather offended by that.”
As if that gives them certain rights. It’s simply a whine,
just no more than a whine. “I find that offensive”: it has no meaning;
it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase.
( Stephen Fry, British comedian, actor, writer, humanist activist )

 

 

*   *   *

May you look forward to new questions in the new year;
May you use caution when judging what does – or doesn’t –
reflect your “values and principles;”
May you be mindful of “the dangers posed by ideological gatekeeping
in science and public discourse;”
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Specifically, in the pear tree daughter Belle purchased and (with the help of MH) planted many years ago

[2] They did not use that term; sharecroppers was considered pejorative.  They were “tenant farmers.”

[3]   My father’s parents couldn’t afford shoes for all six of their children, so as the elder kids got shoes, then outgrew them, they handed them down to the younger siblings. You got to wear shoes if there were a pair that happened to fit you. My father went to his proverbial grave not knowing that my mother had shared that story, with my sisters and I, of how our dad was embarrassed as a child when he showed up barefoot at school and was teased by the townie kids, who called him a dumb barefoot farm boy.

[4] Or “Damp January,” if you still have things to toast now and then.

[5] No matter what the SCOTUS rules.

[6] The ad showed an edited interview between Harris and…(?), with Harris explaining an answer re whether a prisoner, while imprisoned, could have sex change/affirming surgery, which would of course be at taxpayer expense.  Harris seemed to be fumbling – I have no idea of the context of the interview, and of course it was edited by and for the MAGA ad – but she answered yes)  The ad’s voiceover went on to say how Harris “…is for they/them, while tR___ is for *you.*

[7]   A tautology is a rhetorical repetition, as in phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice using different words (e.g., ‘always and forever;” “a beginner who has just started”),

[8] …or fire the co-presidents, like a “real” organization’s board can do?  Does the FFRF Board actually have any power, or is the FFRF essentially a family organization? For as long as I can remember, Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor (who are also husband and wife) have been FFRF’s co-presidents.

[9] “Those who question our beliefs are tools of the devil; heretics; apostates, blasphemers….”

[10]  From Coyne’s site(whyevolutionistrue) :  “When some readers pointed out…that Biology is not bigotry was no longer online, I had no idea what happened, and assumed they had relocated the post. I was unable to believe that they would actually remove my post, especially because FFRF co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor had given me permission to write it and approved the final published version.  I emailed Annie Laurie inquiring what had happened to my piece. I never got a response—or rather, they didn’t have the human decency to write me back personally.”  Instead Coyne received what I and apparently all FFRF members received: Barker & Gaylor’s “apology blog.”  In which, as he noted, “… they refer to my piece, they mention neither who wrote the piece or what it was about. If I’m to be cancelled for what I wrote, dammit, I want my NAME and TOPIC mentioned!”

[11] “Reality’s Last Stand is a publication by evolutionary biologist Dr. Colin Wright dedicated to providing weekly news, analysis, and opinion on topics related to free speech, science, and reality.” (from the site).

[12] Dawkin’s “very civil” resignation letter can be read here.

[13] “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