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The Rejection I’m Not Minding

March 28, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), movies, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, TV, Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Rejection I’m Not Minding

Department Of A New Way To Handle Rejection

Context:  Although I am not currently   [1]  writing nor submitting fiction for publication, I do keep up with some fiction markets and occasionally send something I think might be a fit for a specific journal/publisher.  Dateline: last week.  I received a standard rejection email.  It was sent to my correct email address (robyn@ ____.com) , and disguised as a personal note:  it was longer than the standard, thanks-but-it’s-not-a-fit-for-us note, but when you read closely you realize the plethora of sentences after the no thanks are about the publisher and nothing about you or your work – all they had to do was fill in your name…which was done in this entertaining (to moiself ) fashion:

“Dear Sarah,
Thank you for giving us the opportunity to evaluate _____( name of work)
in view of its potential fit with (name of the publisher)….I’m very sorry to tell you that we regretfully….”

I can take some comfort in knowing that it wasn’t *my* work that was so regretfully rejected, but that of my evil twin, Sarah.    [2]

 

 

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Department Of Speaking Of Writing Adventures

My next project: I’m going to pitch Netflix with my idea for a historical series, ala  Bridgerton. It will be about upper-class women navigating the intricacies of their menstrual cycles during the Regency era. It’s a period piece.

 

 

 

Thank you; I’ll show moiself  out.

 

 

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Department Of But Before Moiself  Embarks On That Adventure,
There Is Feedback To Be Given

Feedback in the form of the following email, which I sent Monday afternoon, to one of my favorite podcast hosts (journalist Shankar Vedantam) of one of my favorite podcasts.     [3]

 

 

Dear Mr. Vedantam,

Big fan of your podcast here – I’m a regular listener, who often gives Hidden Brain a shout-out (and link to) in my blog.  I’m writing to give feedback on something that caught my attention in HB’s most recent episode, The Moments That Change Us.

Early on in the episode, you and the podcast’s guest, philosopher Laurie Paul, are discussing the life-altering events for John Newton, the 18th century English slave ship captain who later wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.  When Newton was very young his very religious mother died, and his father remarried, leaving Newton feeling abandoned.  Subsequently, Newton, as you put it, “soon found himself not only turning away from religion but against it…he became what you might call a *militant atheist*….”

Why did you choose to use the term  militant atheist, a derogatory neologism which certainly wasn’t in usage among Newton’s peers?

Militant atheist is a lazy rhetorical cliché, a label ala the (much wittier) “Four Horsemen of the New Atheist Apocalypse,” which itself is a riff on the violence-infused imagery of end-times Christian scriptures.  The “Four Horsemen of the New Atheist Apocalypse” refers to four particular scientists/philosophers/authors/journalists – Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens – known for their respective, vigorous, droll, evidence-based critiques of religion.  Each of them have also been labeled as  militant atheists.

When did Dawkins, Harris, Dennett and Hitchens ever arm themselves with AK47s?  Have they amassed a cache of IEDs?  Have they opened a school for training atheist suicide bombers?  The closest they’ve come to tossing grenades are the ideas they lob to point out the delusions of religious tenets and the dangers of applying religious-based constraints to politics and science.

When is the last time you encountered an armed, violent group of atheists bent on murdering a political cartoonist or stabbing a fiction author because they objected to the religious editorial content of the cartoonists’ and authors’ respective works?

How’s about we all agree to not precede the term atheist – which simply means, a person sans theism – with militant, unless that non-theist is actually engaging in the violent acts of a militia?

The main proponents of the term  militant atheist are religious propagandizers:  “You atheists are so militant!”  Translation: “I am upset that you who do not hold my religious beliefs are unapologetically and forthrightly invoking facts to support your critical thinking.”

(from Oxford Languages dictionary)
Militant: adjective – combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause,
and typically favoring extreme, violent, or confrontational methods.

Being described as “militant” is dismissive to we who hold natural (as opposed to supernatural) worldviews.  We who are religion-free are not subject to the actual militancy of scriptural decrees and religious leaders’ admonitions, which are depressingly too common to list in their entirety.  A sampler from Christian scriptures includes:

 * “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34)

* “He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” (Luke 22:3)

* (from one of Jesus’s parables) “But as for these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slaughter them before me.’”  (Luke 19:27)

* “For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.”  (Romans 13:4)

*  “…whoever would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman.”  (2 Chronicles 15:12-13)

* “But if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword.  For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.”  (Isaiah 1:20)

* “The high places of Isaac will be destroyed and the sanctuaries of Israel will be ruined; with my sword I will rise against the house of Jeroboam.” (Amos 7:9)

Sure, many of us atheists/Freethinkers/Humanists/Skeptics get annoyed, frustrated, and sometimes even outraged at the supernatural folly we are surrounded by.   Human Psychology 101 alert:  People who are misunderstood, mischaracterized, denigrated, oppressed, and even attacked (physically as well as verbally) frequently become angry.  Remember how “militant” was applied to the Black Power and Feminist groups of the 1960s and 1970s?

We who are religion-free would simply like to be able to express our beliefs without encountering vitriol and discrimination.  We would simply like to acknowledge our views against and concerns about religious influence in public and civic life – yep, even in front of religious people, who have become accustomed to the arbitrary privilege of freedom from critique which is accorded religion in the United States (a country where seven states still have bans on atheists holding public office ).

Sincerely and compellingly (if not militantly) yours,

Robyn Parnell

 

 

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Department Of Letting The Mystery Be

Only two weeks ago I blogged about my wistfulness re the unlikelihood of successfully pulling off a prank in this there-are-cameras-everywhere world  ( The Pranks I’m No Longer Playing ).  However, one of my neighbors (?    [4]   ) has done so. 

 

 

 

A couple of weeks ago MH showed me the above, which was tied to one of the branches of our pear tree in our front yard.  Yes, this is the same tree that gets a feature in this blog during the holiday season, when the tree hosts a rotating/weekly lineup of Partridge Family ® members, ala: 

 

 

 

 

Those omnipresent neighborhood  porch/house/garage cameras I mentioned?   MH and I have them, as well.  The cameras are sensitive enough (to our irritation) that they record when someone just walks past our front yard, on the sidewalk      [5]…which goes by the pear tree…which means we could figure out who did it.

Moiself  thinks it’s best to not know the specifics; rather, it’s fun to hold good thoughts for the entire neighborhood.  I’ll just let the mystery be.

 

 

 

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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [6]

 

*   *   *

May you be the grateful recipient of a heart-warming prank;
May you reserve epithets like militant for true militants;
May you, sometimes, just let the mystery be;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] As in 99.2% of the time not….

[2] who apparently has gotten hold of both my manuscript and my email address, that plagiarizing bitch.

[3] Which regular readers of this blog are aware of me recommending, along the lines of, “you must listen to this episode….”

[4] Moiself  is guessing/assuming.

[5] We receive a notification that someone activated the front porch camera , though no one in fact it is on our front porch, they’re just walking past our house.

[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 Mental Gymnastics I’m Not Doing

March 21, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, family life, foodie, freethought/humanism, friends, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, nature, politics, radio & podcasts, reproductive rights, science, TV, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Mental Gymnastics I’m Not Doing

Department Of Good News First
Warning: Entering Parental Bragging Zone

 

 

On Tuesday I found out that daughter Belle, who works as Quality Assurance Manager for Schilling Cider,  passed the exam  [1]  (which was given during the  2025’s CiderCon convention ) to become certified as a professional Pommolier. 

My heart soars like a hawk.   [2]   Ya, hoo!!

 

 

A pommolier is the hard cider industry’s analog to a sommelier.  This, from from the American Cider Association website’s “Meet Our Certified Pommoliers ®  (where Belle will soon be listed):

“Becoming a Certified Pommelier is a remarkable achievement that celebrates dedication, perseverance, and a deep passion for the art and science of cider. It requires hours of rigorous study, sensory analysis practice, and a commitment to mastering the intricacies of cider. From learning about different apple varieties to understanding the complex flavors and aromas of ciders, Certified Pommeliers have honed their skills to expert levels. Their hard work and preparation not only showcase their knowledge and expertise but also exemplify their love for all things cider-related. Cheers to all Certified Pommeliers for their dedication and commitment to the craft!”

MH and I were impressed and also intimidated by the length and breadth of the knowledge Belle would be tested on, from the chemistry of brewing and fermentation to knowledge of/ability to identify obscure European apple varieties.  The test was given in February; she was told results would take (at least)  six weeks.  As we neared the results deadline I was a teensy bit anxious for her (the test is designed to fail at least 80% of those who take it).

Monday noontime I was at my favorite sushi restaurant here in Hillsboro, waiting to meet a friend for lunch, when I got Belle’s text.  I knew that she was at a local (Pacific Northwest) cider conference in Tacoma, and figured that, as she’d done earlier in the day, she was texting between symposiums to share conference stories.  Apparently the involuntary squeal of delight I emitted when I read Belle’s text (“ HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT:  I  DID ITTTTTTTT ”) was loud enough for the two sushi chefs to hear, as they both looked up from slicing saki and maguro, nodded across the sushi bar at me, and said, “Congratulations.”

I thanked them (and the people sitting at the two tables on either side of moiself, who also smiled at/congratulated me), and explained that there indeed was good news, but it was about my daughter….and would you like to know what a pommolier is?

 

 

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Department Of Seasonal News Second

Happy Vernal Equinox, y’all. 

Hope you yogis were inspired to do 108 Sun salutations to mark the turning of the season.

 

 

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Department Of Yet Another Sign Of The Impending Apocalypse

Dateline: Sunday 9:55-ish: MH and moiself  are sitting in our respective Norwegian “stressless” recliner chairs, after having watched  Ordinary People.  Despite the admittedly comfy chairs’ claim to fame, we are actually stressed – as in, under emotional duress – as each of us has forgotten how achingly devastating the movie is.  We exchange comments about that, then MH grows silent, looks out at his feet resting on his chair’s ottoman, and asks, “Do these socks make my feet look really long?”

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Ugly Americans  [3]   Down Under
Sub-Department  Of One Of The More Stupid Attempts At Self-Redemption/Justification Moiself  Has Read In A Long Time…

…the source of which would be the story about an American “social media influencer” (Instagram handle,  Sam Jones from Montana )   [4]   who was visiting Australia.  One evening while traveling on a remote road this influencer spotted a mother and baby wombat off the side of the road.  Instead of acting like a normal/respectful person and taking a photograph of the animals, she exited her vehicle, snatched the baby from its mother and ran back to her car (where she apparently had a camera/phone mounted).  She held the wriggling baby wombat up to record its distress, which she narrated, while both baby and mama wombat squealed their displeasure:

“ ‘Mama’s right there, and she’s pissed, ’ the woman said in a video posted online. She went on to release the joey   [5]   on the roadside in the darkness, illuminated only by her car’s headlights….

The indignation was bipartisan…Tony Burke, said officials would review the woman’s visa to see if any immigration laws had been breached, and that any future applications from her would receive intense scrutiny. The government did not release her name but Australian news media identified her as Samantha Strable.

The drumbeat of criticism included calls to deport the woman. On Friday morning, ABC Australia, the national broadcaster, sent out a news alert saying she had left Australia….

Mark Heinz, a reporter for the Wyoming-based Cowboy State Daily, said he believed the woman in question was…Ms. Strable, whom he had interviewed in 2023 about her enthusiasm for hunting….

In the interview with Mr. Heinz, Ms. Strable, then a resident of Pinedale, Wyo., recounted her adventures of having hunted red stag in Chile with a bow and killed pigs and wallabies in New Zealand. ….

Detailing her pig hunting experience in New Zealand, in which dogs corner wild pigs allowing for the hunter to plunge a knife into the animal’s heart, she said it was ‘intense.’

‘Honestly, I cried,’ she said in the interview. ‘I don’t like killing. I like the hunting, I like the chase. It’s not fun to see anything die.’ “

( excerpts, my emphases, from “Outrage in Australia After American Woman Grabs a Baby Wombat,” by Victoria Kim, NY Times, 3-14-25 )

 

 

No surprise ( to moiself ) that this self-aggrandizing, social media slut influencer who terrified and stressed an infant animal and its mother, is a hunter.  And what a bummer to read that, after all the effort Strable put into her “adventures,” the hunter claims not to enjoy the end result of the hunt.  What a shock, that it wasn’t  fun for Ms. Strable to see the wild pig die – the living creature whom she’d sought out and terrorized by siccing dogs to chase and corner it – the living creature into whose heart she’d then plunged a knife ?!

 

Poor baby.

 

Yo, Strable: None of the animals you killed had to die.  The wild pig didn’t have to die, Ms. Strable. You could have just left it alone.  Or enjoyed the challenge – without using tracking dogs to terrorize the poor creature –  of getting close enough to the pig to take a picture of it.  Or enjoyed the “chase” by chasing a living being (a fellow homo sapiens?) who voluntarily agreed to participate in it.

 

 

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Department Of I Wanted Distraction While On The Elliptical;
What I Got Was An Aha Moment

I’ve been doing my pre-breakfast workout for the past few weeks while re-watching some Grey’s Anatomy seasons that I don’t have much memory of.  Dateline: last Friday morning I’m on Season 11; it’s the heart-rending episode where Dr. April Kepper gives birth to her and her husband Dr. Jackson Avery’s doomed/premature baby.  Relevant character background: April is a fervent evangelical Christian;    [6]   Jackson is an atheist.

April is distraught after an ultrasound at 24 weeks gestation gives bad news about her pregnancy.  Further testing reveals that her fetus has the most severe form of a devastating genetic disorder,    [7]  which will cause it to die either before birth or shortly thereafter.  April is gutted by the news, and after learning that her baby’s bones are already starting to break in utero, she opts for what her supportive husband and their OBs and pediatricians recommend as the least awful choice: to induce labor, and thus be able to hold their baby before it dies.

At one point, when April and Jackson are discussing their options, she is a walking open wound, ranting about how unfair it all is.  She’s believed in her god all of her life; she has followed what she thought was her calling, from her god, to be a doctor and to heal the sick; she is a believer; she has tried to do good; she has prayed; she’s done everything right and this is so unfair, so unfair….  She rages on about the unfairness, then adds….

“…and it’s *cruel.”

All her husband can do is listen in supportive agony.  And I found moiself  wondering if    [8]   he was thinking what I was thinking:   that while what has happened is certainly awful, it’s only *cruel* if you believe in (a) god.

It is only cruel because April believes in a god that made this world, and that she believes her god can and does act in this world, which leaves her with only cruel options:

*  either her so-called loving god gave her baby this horrible death sentence, or

* seeing as how April has expressed how she believes her god is all-powerful and all loving and that all over the world, “miracles do happen,” that when no miracle happens it is because her god is choosing not to fix what it could fix.

 

 

Translation:  What is cruel, actually, are her beliefs; what is cruel is her religious faith, which has filled her heart and mind with cruel, supernatural nonsense.

When people experience such tragedies they go through pain and mourning, the what-ifs, the sorrow, the frustration, the anger… This is true for people who hold any religious faith, as well as for people who are religion-free.  All of us suffer when tragedy strikes.

But Humanists, Atheist, Freethinkers, Skeptics – we who are religion-free – do not have the added burden of the gut-twisting sense of betrayal, of second-guessing of what we could have or should have done re our faith-based rituals, of agonizing over what our supposedly all-powerful god did or did not choose to do.  When tragedy strikes, we whose worldviews are free from superstition/religion/theology also suffer the same emotions of grief and loss, *except* for that huge one, because we acknowledge the truth of the natural world.

We know that we are neither punished/cursed by tragedy nor rewarded/blessed by prosperity; we know that when our loved one dies that there is no supernatural cause of, nor relief from, our suffering.  We know that sometimes, shit just happens…which means that a core part of being human is to wade through the shit, relying on and accepting the comfort and support of our fellow human beings.

 

 

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Department Of Things That Never Get Old   [9]

Welcome to yet another new feature of the new year, which may continue on the third Friday of each month.  Or…not.

When was the last time you rewatched Airplane!    [10] 

 

 

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [11]

“So I’m not really interested in the mental gymnastics that allow a person to believe
in both a loving god and baby cancer. Over and out.”

( anonymous poster on online religious debate bulletin board )

*   *   *

May you have reasons to be audibly delighted in sushi bars;
May you be free from the gut-twisting mental gymnastics of theism;
May you enjoy a joke/scene/song that never gets old;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] given by the American Cider Association, to cider professionals qualified/nominated to take it.

[2] Little Big Man.

[3] The pejorative “Ugly American” originates from a 1958 novel of the same name.  The book portrayed Americans’ attitudes ( be they tourists or business tycoons wishing to do business with/in foreign countries) toward non-Americans as those of ignorance, arrogance, and condescension.  The term has come to mean a stereotype of loud, ill-mannered, insensitive American tourists who offend the citizens of the countries they travel to.

[4] There is a “title” or job description that has had its 15 minutes of bullshit fame and needs to go the way of leech collectors, phrenologists, caddy butchers, and other obsolete professions.

[5] A baby wombat.  Yep, the same term is used for a baby kangaroo.

[6] Which doesn’t stop her from having fervent premarital sex with Jackson in hospital on call rooms – but this seems to be part of the contract those doctors working in Seattle have to sign.

[7]   osteogenesis imperfecta II (aka “brittle bone disease”)

[8] Well, if that character were real….but, although that was fiction, thousands of people face such dilemmas every day, around the world.

[9] At least, to ever-youthful moiself.

[10] Best disaster film parody ever.  In fact, I recall reading a comment from one film historian about how studios stopped making disaster films for a time after that movie’s release, because no one would take them seriously.  

[11] “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 Pranks I’m No Longer Playing

March 14, 2025

Robyn Parnell are we having fun yet? (Women & Men & Feminism), books & magazines, community, current events, extended family, foodie, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, health & wellness, Holidays, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), making fun of Norwegians and/or the Irish, nature, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, school, science, The Write Stuff (literary life), Wow, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

 

Happy Pi Day, Y’all

 

 

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Department Of Things For Tomorrow’s To-Do List

Beware the….

Tides that arch?  Brides that parch?  Sides of starch?  What was that…thing?

 

 

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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?!?!?!   [1]   friend gave me, all those years ago,   [2]   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 March to see what I was thinking. (or as MH put it, WHAT was I thinking!?!? )

 

 

Here is an excerpt from my blog of 3-10-17 ( The History I’m Not Reading ).

 “For the great Gaels of Ireland
Are the men that God made mad,
For all their wars are merry,
And all their songs are sad.”[3] 

MH and I are traveling ’round Ireland in the late spring.

 

 

Thank you! We’re excited, too.

I try to read up on the history of places I’m going to visit, and also sample the destination’s contemporary art (in the form of fiction and films). As per the former endeavor, I am currently and once again reminded of why I loathe reading history: because war and religion, two of the most despicable human enterprises, IMHO, almost always figure so prominently. And in Irish history, the combination of the two is a feckin’ load of ballsch to curl your clackers.   [4]

I cannot recall the source of the nailed-it!  quote I ran across, several years ago (I believe it was from an Irish novelist, not a historian), which went something along the lines of this:  Ireland’s cultural and political woes can be attributed to the fact that the Irish are

“a twice colonized people – first by the Catholics and then by the British.”

There are many ways to interpret history, and two “sides” I keep encountering, each which urges the reader to keep in mind either (1) “History is written by the winners,” or (2) “History is written by the literate, whether or not they were the ultimate winners.”

 

And your point would be?

 

Whatever.  In either case, and especially with regards to reading Irish and European history, it’s the nomenclature, for lack of a better term, that gets to me. Consider the many, many, many – and did I mention a whole lotta? – pages devoted to the various invasions of “The barbarians.”  Some of these pages are contained in a book I recently finished, the presumptuously titled, How The Irish Saved Civilization.

HTISC, by its very title, presents a (dubious, in some critics’ eyes) supposition as fact. The book essentially argues for the elevation of the importance of the Irish Catholic clergy in preserving Western culture after the collapse of the Roman Empire, when western Europe was “…being overrun by barbarians” (aka Huns, Visigoths, and other Germanic tribes).

So. We have the entrenched residents, whose beliefs and actions I would not hesitate to call barbaric, whose priests waged wars and inquisitions to subjugate, torture and kill “heretics” (defined however they chose, from those who simply disagreed with official policy, to philosophers, Jews, “Witches,” Protestant reformers, and other fellow Catholics – the various factions who slaughtered each other over nuances in theology)…  But it’s these guys coming over the hill,  they are the barbarians, because….uh…because they are illiterate and thus can’t cite their magic holy books to justify their atrocities.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

 

My impression and subsequent summation of centuries of Irish history, after reading 600+ pages (and more to come!) in various books, is almost Tweetable     [5]   in its brevity:

The _______(civil articles; treaty; king; bishop) promised religious toleration;
the _______ (king; landlord; bishop) saw no advantage in a peace now that victory was secure;
the Gaelic infantry was slaughtered.

Lather; rinse; repeat.

 

 

Department Of And Then There’s This

Slogging through the pages of history, I am occasionally rewarded with a gem hidden in the festering bog. Such as this sentence, from a passage about kinship ties between Gael lords and the Catholic clergy:

“One sixteenth-century bishop of Clogher was eulogized on his death as ‘a very gem of purity and a turtle dove of chastity,’
this despite his leaving behind at least fifteen children.”

(Ireland: Land, People, History, by Richard Killeen)

 

Not tonight, dear, I’m the turtle dove of chastity.

 

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Department Of You’re No Fun Anymore

Moiself  still gets a great idea,    [6]    every now and then, about pranks to play.   Such as the one that often returns through my twisted wistful little mind when I’m returning from a morning constitutional and, depending on the route I take, walk past a house near my ‘hood that fills me with pranks-that-were-not-to-be-realized  regret.

Said house has a three-car garage.  The third garage door, when open, reveals the setup of a home electronics/wood shop and sometimes the shop dude, either working on a project or, on a warm, late summer day, sitting in a lawn chair in the driveway, in front of his shop, working on a brewski.  Also…

 

 

….make that, up until a couple of years ago, when that third garage door was down you could see a metal plaque affixed to the middle of it which read:  MEN ONLY.

Moiself  actually looked into the cost of getting a stick-on plaque, made of the same material and using the same font as the one on Shop Man’s garage door, which would have one word on it: GIRLY.  My fantasy prank was to (can you guess where this is headed?), one day at the end of one of my early morning walks, stick that plaque above the MEN ONLY one.

I woulda done it, except for this Sad Fact Of Modern Life ® : from more elaborate ventures (such as my plaque-trolling) to the simple/youthful pleasures of playing dingdong ditch or planting gnome statues or other tacky knickknacks in a friend’s Sunset magazine-worthy landscaping, ‘tis almost impossible to “get away with” playing tricks on anyone, anymore. 

 

 

Seriously, you need to ask that?  Because:  from elaborate, motion-activated porch and yard security devices to cell phone cameras, every person, every house or apartment or dwelling, has recording devices.

A couple of years ago the owners of the MEN ONLY garage shop house had the entire exterior of the house painted.  The plaque was taken down as part of the paint prep, and has yet to be reinstalled.  Perhaps (presumption or fantasy on moiself’s  part) the girly occupants of said house took that opportunity to ask the manly shop man to leave it down.

 

 

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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [7]

“There is no good evidence that gods do exist, and lots of good evidence that the idea of gods was invented by human beings. It was realising this that enabled me to feel comfortable describing myself primarily as an atheist rather than an agnostic.

Atheism is also a better basis for investigating morality. Right and wrong are ultimately about how we affect the suffering and wellbeing of other sentient beings. Helping other sentient beings to flourish is good, and causing other sentient beings to suffer unnecessarily is bad. It is complicated to figure out what is right and wrong in any given situation, because there are so many permutations of the effects of your actions.

However, religion distracts us from identifying what is right and wrong by adding in answers that are unrelated to suffering and wellbeing in the real world, but are based on imaginary souls and imaginary consequences in imaginary afterlives. And so you get contradictory messages in books like the bible, which tell us to love our neighbour but stone him to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath. We know that this last command is morally wrong, and so we ignore it. This shows that we do not get morality from the bible, but apply our morality to what we read in it.”

( excerpt from “How And Why I became an Atheist,” by Michael Nugent.
Nugent, a writer and Dubliner, is chairperson of the advocacy group Atheist Ireland,
which promotes atheism, reason and ethical secularism in Ireland and around the world. )

 

 

*   *   *

May you have a tasty Pi Day celebration;   [8]

May you be on the lookout for Ides  mischief after that, and then…
May you have a happy
day-of-celebrating-being-Irish-in-America (aka St. Patrick’s Day);
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

 

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

[2] Was it really over twelve years ago?

[3] From The Ballad of the White Horse, by G. K. Chesterton, English Critic, Essayist, Novelist and Poet, 1874-1936.

[4] For the Irish slang impaired, feckin’ = fucking; ballsch = rubbish; clackers = testicles.

[5] If I were a Twitter kind of person, which I am not.

[6] Well, great to moiself.

[7] “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

[8] If you don’t celebrate Pi Day, why not?  Where would we be without this fundamental mathematical concept of the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, which helps us set up equations to understand circles, and objects which oscillate/repeat, and thus allows us to, for example, get precise measurements (via geometry) for construction.  Add it to your calendar  – and it’s a great excuse to make savory and or sweet pies.

The Federal Agency I’m Not Diversifying

March 7, 2025

Robyn Parnell annoyances, community, current events, exercise & fitness, freethought/humanism, general ruminations, Holy Shit!, Isms (religion), Me so happy, Oregon, politics, radio & podcasts, Wow, YEE HAW!, Yikes! , , , , , , , , , Comments Off on The Federal Agency I’m Not Diversifying

Department Of Chattin’ Up The Feds

Dateline:  yesterday; circa 7:45 a.m.; on morning walk; heading back toward my neighborhood.  Context: previous evening MH mentioned reading on a Hillsboro community news FB group where someone was wondering about a “raid” (the someone speculated) that was going on near 28th  street.

As part of my walk, I turned off the afore-mentioned street, walking on the north side of the block.  Less than halfway down the block my attention was drawn to a house on the south side of the street, with its front window busted in and the window blinds broken and hanging akimbo from the window frame.  About a dozen people, a mixture of young men and women, were milling about on the house’s front lawn, porch, and sidewalk. All were wearing the distinctive, dark blue, FBI field agent jackets.

 

One of the female agents even had her hair in a pony tail, like…this

 

Standing by an Official-looking Vehicle® parked on the street in front of the next door neighbor’s house was another agent…doing neighborhood point duty? He was the only agent with a visible firearm – a rifle of some sort.  I crossed the street and asked if I could talk with him.  He said yes, and I waved toward his comrades and asked if a training exercise was going on, because, well, maybe the older I get, the younger the agents look?  He gave me a smile which would have qualified him for the Officer Friendly calendar…

 

 

…and said, nope, these are actual agents, who had been executing a search warrant.  To which I replied, “Through the front room window, apparently.”

I began to wonder aloud to him why this would be a federal thing…hmm, drugs?  But the local (city and state police) can handle your garden variety drug case – why the Feds involved? Officer Friendly laughed and told me what I already knew that – that he couldn’t give specifics.  “Oh, of course, But then you know that’s why we,” I pointed around the ‘hood, “have to start rumors, and it’s fun to speculate.”  I told him I lived a few blocks away and walked on this street on a regular basis.  He assured me that, other than the broken window, there was “no violent crime involved,” and that the neighborhood was safe. I remarked that it was nice to see that the officers included both men and women (and not all white); he seemed happy that I noticed, and said that the FBI is quite “inclusive” and that “we need everybody” to “…help keep us safe.”

It was my turn to laugh. “I agree.  You and I may know that, but if a certain president has his way, that’s gonna end…oh, let me guess – you can’t comment on that either.”  He laughed again, stuck out his hand and introduced himself.  I shook his hand, introduced moiself, and thanked him and his comrades for (“hopefully”) keeping us safe. With that, he beamed his 1000 watt smile at me, wished me a great day, and I went on my way, thinking to moiself,

I don’t exactly know why, but this *was* a great way to start the day.

 

 

*   *    *

Department Of Science Needs You To Manage Your Shit

Dateline:  Last Sunday (March 2); reading an article about the uninhabited Icelandic island of Surtsey.     [1]   Surtsey, created by an undersea eruption off the southern coast of Iceland (in 1963 – 1967), has been declared a nature reserve and UNESCO World Heritage Site for its scientific value.  No humans, except for a limited number scientists studying the process of biocolonisation, are allowed on the island.

From the Wikipedia entry for the Icelandic island of Surtsey, heading biology/human impact  (my emphases ):

The only significant human impact is a small, prefabricated hut which is used by researchers while staying on the island….All visitors check themselves and belongings to ensure no seeds are accidentally introduced by humans to the island’s developing ecosystem. It is believed that some boys who sneaked over from Heimaey    [2]   by rowboat planted potatoes, which were promptly dug up once discovered.  An improperly managed human defecation resulted in a tomato plant taking root, which was also destroyed….

 

 

*   *   *

Department Of Rational Articles On An Irrationally Contentious Subject

As readers of this blog may have surmised, moiself  has been in a mood since the election.  This mood often vacillates between white hot anger and cold blue despair, due in great part to the certain left-leaning, political zeitgeist   moiself observed both before the election, which, IMO, portended the abyssal election results.

 

Poor baby.

 

I’m written about this several times, most howlingly right after the election:

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 ad,    [3] 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 (usually but not always from the lower economic and education strata) felt silenced or intimidated because they didn’t toe the “progressive” political and cultural lines?  Maybe they have questions about 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;” they will be condescended to and corrected when they reference a person’s “race” or ethnicity and use the terms black and white instead of Black and White, or Latino/Latina instead of Latinx….

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.”

( excerpts The Country I’m Not Loving, 11-6-24 )

 

 

Now, to the afore-mentioned, rational articles that are going to solve all this:

The current (February/March) issue of Free Inquiry   [4]   has a special feature on Transgender Controversies.

“In this issue, we have a section presenting some contrasting views on transgender-related issues. Consistent with our respect for personal autonomy, I don’t see how a humanist could oppose an adult transitioning; it’s that person’s life. Similarly, we should support laws prohibiting employment or housing discrimination against transgender individuals. But that respect for personal autonomy does not resolve whether, in biological terms, sex is binary or whether or under what conditions puberty blockers and hormone treatment should be made available to children. Reasonable people, reasonable humanists, can differ on these and other matters, and this journal will present these differences of opinion, leaving it to you, the reader, to evaluate the competing arguments.”
(Excerpts, my emphases,  Humanism Is Not a Creed, editorial, by Ronald A. Lindsay )

This Free Inquiry special feature consists of an introduction, followed by four articles:

*Transgender Rights: A Framework for Resolving the Controversy, by Gary L. Francione

* In the Toilet with J. K. Rowling:  Reason vs. Emotion in the Transgender Bathroom Debate, by Tilda Storey-Law

* Parental Rights: A Casualty of Anti-Transgender Legislation, by Robert Pokorski

*Get Gender Ideology out of Biology! by Nathan H. Lents

 

Trust us, after reading these articles you may have a better understanding of the issues…our just feel as fabulous as we look.

 

“There are several biological differences between men and women, which, of course, become most obvious following puberty and its cascade of hormones. Men, on average, develop broader shoulders and larger hands and feet, more upper body muscles, more fast twitch muscles, lower body fat, greater height, and so on. The key hormone is testosterone. Men have more testosterone, on average, than women. Testosterone provides a very significant advantage in many athletic competitions, as indicated by, among other things, the fact that doping with testosterone and its synthetic analogs is banned by almost all athletic associations. Given these biological differences, there is, understandably, a performance gap between men and women in many sports.

The relevance of these biological facts was accepted by nearly everyone until the advent of transgender athletes, in particular transgender women. Then for some, ideology took precedence over facts.

‘Trans women are women. Period.’  This is the battle cry of the transgender ideologues. And the message is clear: no debate allowed. If one questions the right of transgender women to compete in women’s sport, one is transphobic. Can’t be any other explanation. And the distinct biological development of men and women? Not relevant. Greatly exaggerated.

One of the bizarre aspects of the ideologues’ position is that the very same people who deny that testosterone has any meaningful effect on one’s competitive ability are also the ones who argue that hormone therapy is essential for those with gender dysphoria. For one issue, hormones might as well be water, but for the other issue, hormones are a critical component of transitioning. Only dogma can magically transform a substance from inert to potent.

So, should transgender women be banned from women’s sports? Not necessarily. Reality is messier than the extreme positions staked out by partisans on both sides of this issue. How much of an advantage a formerly male individual may have over biologically female competitors depends on when and how the person’s transition took place and the skills involved in the sport. There may not be one right answer to this problem; weightlifting may require different guidelines than gymnastics.”

(  excerpts from Introduction To Special Section On Transgender Controversies, By Ronald A. Lindsay, my emphases)

 

 

Although moiself  cares not for the seeming obsession with sports vis-à-vis the Transgender Controversies ®,  I’m including Lindsay’s intro comments on one aspect of the controversies – transgender women’s participation in women’s sports – because of two comments he makes which, IMO, get glossed over in all the hoopla…probably because they are so calmly rational.  One statement is a general guide, the other applies specifics:

* Reality is messier than the extreme positions
staked out by partisans on both sides of this issue;

* (as an example of specifics) weightlifting may require different guidelines
than gymnastics.

That last one holds a host of implications in seven simple words.  The idea/fact that one context may have different requirements than another – that’s almost anathema, in this world of hyperbole.  That approach seems to be asking too much from our lazy ideologies.  We want blanket statements; we want one-size-fits-all, when comes to both questions and solutions.   The idea of coolly and logically looking at/analyzing each situation separately – where’s the nasty soundbite opportunity in that?!   

*   *   *

Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week     [5]

“I want an avowed atheist in the White House.  When time comes to push that button, I want whoever’s making the decision to understand that once it’s pushed, it’s over.  Finito.  They’re not gonna have lunch with Jesus.”
( Quentin Bufogle )

 

*   *   *

May you grapple with the messiness of reality;
May you have a cheerful chat with a friendly Fed;
May your defecations be properly managed so as not to disturb scientific studies of an uninhabited island’s developing ecosystem…or anything else;
…and may the hijinks ensue.

Thanks for stopping by.  Au Vendredi!

*   *   *

[1] Whaddya mean, Why?

[2] The largest island of Iceland’s Westman Islands and the only one that is inhabited.

[3] The tR___ campaign’s anti-Harris ad, which ran several times during the World Series, which took issue with Harris’ past support for taxpayer funds being spent on providing gender-affirming surgeries for prisoners.  The ad ended with the  tag line: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

[4] Free Inquiry is a bimonthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary published by the Council for Secular Humanism, a program of the Center for Inquiry.

[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