Department Of Headache-Free Travelogue [1]
Moiself and MH took off last Friday to spend the weekend with daughter Belle. After starting the day with an appointment with our lawyer (to update our wills – a task which was much overdue and was in no way related to our calculating our odds of survival in making the trip) we drove north to Auburn, WA. Auburn is the headquarters of Schilling Cider, where Belle works as QA manager, and also home to Belle, whom I recently insufferably boasted wrote about ( here ), re her passing her Pommolier exam.
We met Belle at her workplace in the late afternoon, got a brief “update” tour (we’d been there a couple of years ago) and had dinner with her at a local Thai restaurant. After an acceptable hotel sleep [2] we picked her up the next morning at her apartment, drove south & west to Tacoma ( where both Belle and her brother, K, went to college, [3] and where Belle lived up until a year ago) for breakfast at one of Belle’s favorite diners, the HobNob. On our way there we discovered that Belle didn’t know what it meant to hobnob; she thought the term was a noun, [4] rather than a verb. I told her she should pretend that MH and I had a certain amount of celebrity (or at least notoriety) so that she could say she had hobnobbed over breakfast.
Suggestion for Good Clean Fun ®: try saying hobnob over and over and over. Or, elbow, or farm – in just a few moments you’ll sound like you’re making up nonsense, instead of repeating actual works that have actual meanings….
Once again, I digress.
After breakfast we drove across the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. The TNB’s claim to fame is its predecessor, the original TNB bridge, nicknamed Galloping Gertie. GG’s collapse a mere four months after it opened (July 1940; likely due to an aeroelastic flutter during a windstorm) was caught on film, and became de rigueur viewing in West Coast high school physics classes for decades afterward.
After a gallop-free bridge crossing, we headed up the east side of the Olympic Peninsula to Finnriver Cidery, where we had lunch and then a private tour [5] of their orchards and facilities. Since the tour guide and Belle are both in the hard cider industry, I got to hear them exchanging a lot of shop talk (perhaps even a few trade secrets?). It was a beautiful drive; Finnriver was an impressive place (Belle had been saying for two years that she “had to” take us there one day); the tour of the orchards and facilities was interesting, informative, and also tasty – during the tour we got to sample taste several different varieties of their ciders.
Afterwards we drove east to Port Townsend, the “…historic seaport with an artistic soul” on the northeastern tip of the Olympic Peninsula. We stayed in a downtown hotel, walked around the downtown waterfront area, had dinner at Tommyknocker’s, a restaurant specializing in worldwide variations on Cornish pasties and other British Isles dishes (I was the only one who ordered a pasty – a vegan/Indian spiced variety). After dinner we returned to the hotel to play games from the hotel’s collection in their library. MH and Belle played a new version of Sorry; I joined them for Scrabble on the condition that, as MH put it, “You can’t win.” [6] After breakfast on Sunday we made a leisurely trip back down the peninsula, returned Belle to Auburn, and returned ourselves back down to Oregon.
Sorry (not really) if I bored the crap outta y’all, but this is so much more relaxing than the It’s-even-worse-than-I-thought ® political primal scream commentary moiself had originally planned for this space.
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Department Of Yeah, What He Said Quote Of The Week
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Department of Quoting The Who,
“Meet the new boss/same as the old boss”
( The Who, Won’t Get Fooled Again )
So, yeah, a pope died this week. Which means there will be a new one, soon.
Some of my religious friends [7] – those on the more liberal side re Christian theology – have said nice things about Pope Francis over the years. Moiself has seen no reason to not remain been skeptical. Sure, I wanted someone with that kind of (regrettable) power over the ignorant ovine masses faithful to be more broad-minded than his predecessors; but as I’ve said before, PF’s kindler, gentler façade is just that: a façade. It’s a new window dressing on a cracked, skewed window. The House (of Roman Catholicism) got new drapes, while it’s 2000-year-old window frames, door jambs, and its very foundation continues to erode.
Given his (or any pope’s) influence, PF’s proclamations could have inspired his flock to action that would have benefited people all over the globe. But the only reason he had that “authority” (religious, cultural political, whatever) is because people gave it to him.
“I have as much authority as the Pope.
I just don’t have as many people who believe it.”
( Comedian, author, social critic George Carlin, from his book, Brain Droppings )
People continue to pay attention to proclamations from the Vatican (or other religious institutions and leaders) as it they were relevant to our century. Coming from pre-scientific, superstition-bound folk, that is understandable. From present-day, religion-free progressives and their liberal religious brethren, this is mind-boggling: y’all be reinforcing the influence of the elderly inhabitants of the Vatican – an institution that was historically and is currently hostile toward rational thought, intellectual freedom, and human rights (no matter how many “nice” things they may say re classes of people they formerly abused and still [if tacitly] denigrate).
The more I think on it the more irritating I find the progressives’ and liberals’ praises re PF. I mean, what did Franky-boy say that hasn’t been said – and better and sooner – by others? PF began his pope gig by playing nice, by saying kind things…uh yeah, a decent human being is supposed to be like that. Why were progressives fawning over a religious leader, and not for being factually correct, but for being nice?
PF said a few “nice” things ( “nice” if contrasted with, kill them infidels and pervies ) things about gays, and made an acknowledgement of the existence of global warming, and liberals suddenly pretended *not* to remember the RC church’s 2000-year history of getting everything wrong, and then ignoring/refusing to right the wrongs in the face of the evidence. [8]
Franky-boy said that “women in the church are more important than bishops and priests”…right after saying “…on woman as priests, that cannot be done.” Thanks for throwing us that cheap/holy bone, Your Inadequacy-ness. For *twelve* years PF was the leader of the his faith’s hierarchy, that “clutch of hysterical sinister virgins” [9] who assert their divine mandate to dictate sexual standards and reproductive health care proscriptions to and for women, while banning women from that same hierarchy. And he did not use his pope power to change that.
Ordain women or stop baptizing them.
I’m tired of blathering about it all these years; I’ll let others more articulate and accomplished than moiself blather their share.
Andrew L. Seidel, Staff Attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation had these observations after the pope’s brief visit to three major US cities in 2015:
“The pope’s whirlwind visit was a public relations coup for the Vatican. But scratch the surface of the PR machine and we find that the pope is all talk….
The pope speaks a great deal about healing the wounds of child abuse–child rape and torture is the more appropriate phrase–even saying “God weeps.” God might weep (if he existed), but they must be crocodile tears, because the pope speaks, but does not act. The pope has the power to stop the rape and torture of children. The solution is simple: Turn over priests accused of this to the criminal and civil justice system and stop hiding and shuffling them around the globe. Turn the rapists and their protectors over to the police and use the vast wealth of the Vatican to make some amends to the victims….He has this power and budget, but does not use it.
He denies women control of their bodies and lives, and upholds the Catholic ban on contraception, even though condom-use would save millions of African lives. He cares more for the rules of his god – supposedly all-powerful though easily defeated by a thin strip of latex – than human life. He’s the pope, he could change the church’s stance, but won’t.
He opposes equal rights for LGBTQ people. He may “not judge” them, but he has the power to change billions of minds and help LGBTQ rights…. But he won’t….
When someone has the power to change a moral evil but does not, their words and excuses are irrelevant. Actions, as the saying goes, speak louder than words. Frank talks a good game, but he’s not doing anything. Talk is cheap….”
( Excerpts, Reminder: The pope’s still conservative and a moral hypocrite,”
September 30, 2015 by Andrew Seidel )
“Anita Bryant did more for gay rights than this co-opting, faux-queer-friendly fraud ever did. At least Anita made us angry and inspired rebellion and fury against her stupid homophobia…. But this new guy does nothing and pretends to be gay positive. Remember that song Smiling Faces Sometimes by the Temptations, with the lyrics ‘Beware of the pat on the back. It just might hold you back’? This is Francis. ‘Good queer,’ he seems to imply when he utters ‘Who am I to judge?’ about gay marriage. Who *are* you?! You’re the fucking Pope for Christ’s sake, that’s who you are.“
( quote from Mr. Know-It-All: The Tarnished Wisdom of a Filth Elder,
by John Waters )
Ordain women and LGBTQ folk or stop dressing like drag queens.
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Department Of Heaven On Earth
Those of us who are Atheist/Skeptics/Humanists/Freethinkers/Brights generally hold no belief in an afterlife; we know that humans find and make our paradises (or netherworlds) right where we are, in the here and now. And according to a study I just made up, whether y’all are religion-free or superstition/supernatural-bound a POOF (“person of observant faith”) [10] there is nothing more satisfying for epicureans/foodies/gourmands than reading through a new cookbook.
Moiself can’t think of any place else I’d rather be than right here, right now, flipping through the pages of a new [11] cookbook. Dora Ramirez’s Comida Casera is home cooking (literal translation), Mexican plant-based style. And from what I’ve seen so far, Ramirez has a lot of sabroso (tasty) style.
As is my custom with a new cookbook, I read through it and mark on a piece of paper (which I keep with the cookbook) what recipes moiself be interested in trying. So far, I’d be marking just about every page. ¿Como se dice YEE HAW en Español?
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Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [12]
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May you hobnob with the best of them;
May you savor the joy of reading a new cookbook;
May you stop praising dead popes and paying attention to live ones;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
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[1] As in, writing about family travels give me less of a headache than writing about the state of our democracy.
[2] Moiself generally does not sleep well in hotels…if I get 4-5 hours’ worth, it’s a win.
[3] At the University of Puget Sound.
[4] Like…a nob that had…hobs on it?
[5] Only in that the three of us were the only three in the 1pm tour group – later tours had more people.
[6] I did win…but not intentionally, and just by eight or so points.
[7] Yes, I do have them.
[8] It took them until nineteen hundred and fucking ninety-two to apologize to Galileo.
[9] My favorite terminology for the RC’s (alleged) celebate male heierarch – from the pope and cardinals down to the parish priests – comes from (surprise!) the ever quotable, late great Christopher Hitchens.
[10] Which is an acronym I think the world sorely needs.
[11] Both to me, and to the world – it was published just this year.
[12] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists. No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
